


Where Has the Consort Run to Today?

by rainedparade



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe - Decepticons Won, Depression, Forced Marriage, M/M, Narration Style: Episodic, Orgasm Denial, Search and Retrieval Kink, Sex Toys, Top Heavy Bottom Hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27408478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainedparade/pseuds/rainedparade
Summary: In a show of indulgence, Megatron allows his Autobot consort to stretch his pedes by means of escape.  Picking him up is half the fun, after all.
Relationships: Megatron/Optimus Prime
Comments: 105
Kudos: 218





	1. The Consort has run away today.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slice of life fic based off of a Deception Victory AU where ~~second verse, same as the first~~ every chapter has the same setup: Optimus runs away from Megatron; Megatron finds and frags him before hauling him back to Kaon.

In terms of escape plans, the current situation was far from ideal. His logic units had been blaring in alarm since he'd first fled the fortress and he'd been forced to shut them down.

His fuel tanks, which had been at 78% at the start of the orn, were now at 44% and rapidly plummeting.

Hadean was still making its way up the sky.

A nighttime escape would've been better. He was little more than a tricolour target out here in the Ulrann Wastes.

And still, Optimus powered on, unheeding of the warnings in his HUD and willfully ignoring his own rising charge. There was nothing to be done for either problem in any case.

Freedom, his spark sang.

Freedom, freedom, freedom.

His fuel tanks were at 28% when he saw the first seeker in his rear-view mirror.

The seeker, whoever it was, was but a flash of silver against the clouds, there for a moment and then gone again. If Optimus weren't in his alt mode, he would've clenched his fists in frustration. He wasn't even halfway out of the wastes!

Still, he urged himself forward, rationalising that there was a possibility -- however slim -- that that Seeker might be willing to turn a blind eye to his escape. Unlikely, but not impossible. There were, after all, a considerable number of Decepticons less than pleased with his newfound role in Cybertron. Funny that, he thought while siphoning more fuel to his engines. He'd never thought he would be sympathetic to the philosophies of Decepticon elitists, but there it was.

The Seeker did not, in any case, make any effort to engage him.

As his fuel gauge spat back 25%, Optimus grimly realized that Megatron's obsession with keeping him isolated from Autobot and Decepticon alike likely extended to search and retrieval missions too. The Seeker, even if they had been wholly loyal, would have been given strict orders to report and not engage.

Primus forbid he have any interaction with anyone other than his _bondmate_.

The thought of the recent spate of humiliations was enough to overpower the fogginess that came with his rising charge. It was evidently enough that his processor could pull up a confrontation matrix at the sight of his arch nemesis turned conjux (his tanks roiled at the title) on the horizon.

 _He's found me,_ Optimus thought with a plummeting spark.

The confrontation matrix helpfully spat back when Megatron would catch up to him (breems if not kliks) and how long the battle would last and what privileges -- already few and far between -- his little excursion would cost him. Some process which hadn't been gutted with the logic processor told him to cycle his engines down and beg the warlord for mercy.

Optimus ignored that too, feeding additional power to said engines and feeling the dunes of Ulrann fly by from under his treads.

Megatron was gaining. Of course he was. They both knew the speed differential between a jet and a truck was laughable.

And yet, as soon as Optimus could make out the familiar silver and purple contours of the other, Megatron evidently cut his own engines so that the distance between them was maintained. The other was still far too close for comfort, but he was well past the threshold of estimated time of arrival as per the confrontation matrix.

 _He's toying with me,_ Optimus realised.

It was adding insult to injury.

 _Then so be it,_ he decided, pushing himself forwards.

On and on, he drove. On and on Megatron followed. If anyone else was watching -- the other Seekers perhaps, or Razorbeak -- it would have looked like the two of them were traveling together to some predetermined destination. Not for the first time, Optimus wished there was some road that would lead them (or at least him) to the mythical Pits of Cybertron.

Of course Primus would choose to indulge him in that instant.

Optimus was too shocked to stifle his own cry of alarm as the earth began to crumble beneath his treads. He had been accelerating at too high of a speed to effectively brake, much less change gears. Later, he would realise it was nothing more than a sandquake, a frequent geological phenomenon in the wastes. At the present he could only cut his engines in resolution as the endless blackness swallowed him whole.

And then, for a blissful moment, there was nothing.

\---

Sweet oblivion lasted breems, if that.

He was jolted out of it by a familiar clawed hand seizing upon his fender.

With but a snarl, Optimus found himself bodily yanked out of the dune that had collapsed on top of him. Megatron was on the other side, of course, and he was far from happy.

"Throttle down," the newly-coronated Emperor of All Cybertron commanded as Optimus' engines revved weakly. "And transform back already."

The shifting back to robot mode was a reminder of his own loss of autonomy.

Megatron bared his denta at him, stalking forward. The blow Optimus was expecting never came. Instead, the former warlord shoved him back down into the sand and ran his servos up and down Optimus' frame. In the wake of his momentary offlining, it seemed his processor finally remembered the budding charge and was now causing his frame to tremble anew.

"What are your fuel levels at?" Megatron demanded after his servos had worked through every klik of Optimus' frame.

"Ten percent."

"Inform me when they reach five percent," Megatron demanded before giving a meaningful tap against Optimus' interface panel.

 _He can't possibly mean to..._ Optimus thought with dawning dread, even as the protective panel obediently retracted. He focused his optics on the patch of clouds next to Hadean, determined to be as removed from this indignity as possible.

Megatron evidently took this as a challenge. Optimus could feel the other's EM fields slanting as his fingers teased the edges of Optimus' valve.

"You've been leaking lubricant, you know?" Megatron remarked. "Such a pretty little trail you left." He gave a cruel chuckle, tracing the rim of the vibrating toy that had been left in Optimus. "What a thoughtful consort I have."

"Just take your pleasure already," Optimus snapped.

Another cruel chuckle as the servos began to slowly, ever so slowly, dislodge said toy.

"In time," Megatron reassured him, "All in due time."

Optimus couldn't stifle the gasp, equal parts relieved and humiliated, when the toy was extracted from him. His valve was at once exposed to their arid surroundings and he was dismayed to find it reflexively clenching about the sudden sense of emptiness.

"Look at you," Megatron crooned, opening their bonded comm so that Optimus could look through his optics, "Look at how desperate you are."

Optimus flinched at the sight. To see the state his own valve had been reduced to was bad enough, but the gathering charge the sight induced -- half his own and half Megatron's -- was all the worse. It brought back memories of how Megatron had forced him to watch the whole of their interface session through Decepticon optics in their shared berthroom.

Thankfully, Megatron killed the comm after half a klik, allowing Optimus to use his own optics once more. He _really_ did not like watching himself get stretched open and speared, though both sensations were now depressingly familiar.

"Prime," Megatron said as his own interface panel pulled back and his spike instantly pressurised, a thick and cloying weight against Optimus' thigh.

Optimus found himself forced to meet the other's optics.

"What?" he asked.

"Who do you belong to?" Megatron asked, as his servos scraped down his consort's trembling sides, coming to rest as Optimus' hips.

Optimus clenched his denta.

Megatron prodded his valve with the tip of his spike.

"Prime," the warlord growled. "Answer the question."

Optimus dug his fingers into the sand below, resisting for but a microklik before the answer spilled forth.

"I belong to you," he answered.

Megatron's engines gave a pleased thrum. The grip on his waist tightened.

"Yes," his bondmate purred, sheathing his spike to the hilt in one smooth thrust. He arched over Optimus, biting down on his neck cables. "Now and forever."

A mockery of the oath of bondmates he'd been forced to take.

Like usual, Megatron's pace was relentless. The toy had rendered Optimus' valve more than capable of accepting his spike and each thrust activated a dozen pleasure modules. At some point in the spiking, Optimus realised his legs had wrapped themselves about Megatron and that his pedes were now digging into the other mech's back struts. It was business as usual: another betrayal from his own frame.

Megatron overloaded in him with a grunt. Optimus felt the scrape of talons against his waist before his valve was flooded with transfluid. Megatron rode out the aftershocks of his overload, making a couple shallower thrusts before giving a long and satisfied invent.

"My poor consort," Megatron crooned when it was almost over. He was still buried to the hilt of course and Optimus was rolling his hips in warranted albeit unwanted frustration. "So wanting. So wet." His claws ghosted at the point of contact, coming back up with proof of their union -- as well as Optimus' own unrealised charge. Megatron gave another shallow thrust which had Optimus seeing white.

He was so close. So, so, so close. And Megatron knew it.

"You know what I want," Megatron whispered, bringing his helm close so that his forehead rested upon Optimus'. His other servos trailed upwards, toying with the overload inhibitor that had been clipped onto his consort's mainline.

"Come now," Megatron chided, moving his mouth closer. He was practically breathing over Optimus' battlemask. "Do not deny yourself this. It is unbecoming."

Optimus grit his denta and glared. Processor over frame, he repeated to himself. Processor and _spark_ over frame.

Ever since their bonding ceremony, he had not kissed the other. If Megatron so desired it, he would have to order it of him, for he was resolved never to do so again of his own volition, no matter how desperately his frame sought release.

The red optics that stared back at him were utterly without mercy. But his battlemask did not budge.

"Very well," Megatron answered, tilting his head to mouth at Optimus' left audial for a bit before pulling back. He then pulled himself out and depressurised his spike, retracting it into his own panel before pulling a cleaning cloth out from his subspace and attending to Optimus' well-used valve.

The aftercare was always the worst, Optimus thought. What was the point in tidying him up at all, he peevishly thought, if they were to go straight to the baths upon returning to Darkmount? Unless... a dark voice in his spark whispered... unless the Slagmaker planned to punish him right after.

The thought of additional torture -- particularly torture inflicted on unrelated others -- caused his own EM field to plummet. His unfulfilled charge went ignored; after chords without he was almost used to it.

Right as Megatron finished up, Optimus found himself compelled to break the silence.

"My fuel readings are at five percent," he resentfully reported. A part of him hoped he might drift into permanent stasis during the course of the punishment.

"Just as well," Megatron preened, running his thumb in three circles on the inside of Optimus' thigh -- thus granting Optimus permission to cover himself. He stood up and transformed into his alt mode in an instant. Optimus looked longingly, first at Hadean, then at the endless stretch of dunes, before he pushed himself to his pedes and clambered over to clutch onto the other.

With a whirr of warbuild engines, Megatron took the skies.

\---

Upon their return to Darkmount, Megatron led him to the baths. He was meticulously cleaned there, both inside and out, and the jagged scratches on his waist plates buffed away.

The rest of the orn was spent waiting for the other pede to drop.

Yet the expected punishment never came.

Even when Megatron retired to the berthroom, he made no indication that Optimus was to be punished for his attempted escape, futile though it had been.

At last, his own dread caught up to him and he could not keep from blurting out during the evening energon:

" _When_ should I expect to be punished?"

Megatron raised an optic ridge.

"Punished?" he repeated. "Ah, you mean for your little joyride," he chuckled at the double meaning before extending his servos to stroke at the ever-present battlemask.

"There's no need," Megatron reassured him, with the same smug certainty as when he had claimed Optimus as his consort. "It matters not where or how far you go for I will always find you."

Always.

Optimus held his crimson gaze for a while before pulling back. It was a challenge, one he could not refuse. He knew warbuilds in general enjoyed the thrill of the hunt; the mech before him clearly took it to new levels. The odds were against him but he had nothing to lose. He drew his field close, careful to keep an unaffected air about Megatron as he took hold of the energon cube.

Yet inside, his spark blazed with hope.


	2. The Consort and the Slums

It would be a chord before Optimus was presented with another opportunity. He was better prepared this time at least, with fuel levels at 95% and half a chord's worth of energon stashed away in his subspace.

Despite this, the probability matrix that helpfully popped up when he made his way through the gardens told him that this attempt too, would likely end in failure.

It didn't matter, he told himself. What mattered was getting out of Megatron's grasp. What mattered was removing himself from the forced interface sessions for as long as possible.

As if seeking to remind him of his uncomfortable orn to orn existence, his valve gave a telling clench. There had been no toy inserted this night cycle, not while Optimus needed to attend court with the Vosian dignitaries. Appearances needed to be kept, after all, and Megatron was loathe to have anyone else see him in any state of charge.

One would think, Optimus reckoned, as he launched himself over the final set of walls that separated the gardens at Darkmount from the rest of Kolkular, that the enforced isolation Megatron inflicted upon him -- where the servants were instructed to avoid contact and refuse to speak even when spoken to -- would make escape easier. But the Decepticon HQ was still sealed tighter than a lockjaw's jaw.

The isolation was wearing on him, to say nothing of the interfacing. He had lost track of the number of times Megatron had overloaded in him. He was sure the number of times he'd been pushed to the brink of overload, only to deny and be in turn denied was similarly high.

Optimus tried to think of the last time someone else had spoken to him. It had been the bonding ceremony, he realised. The one that featured Shockwave as the master of ceremony, leading the two of them through the standard oaths and incantations.

And before that... it had been Bumblebee. Optimus shook his helm, shifting into truck mode before making his way into Kaon proper. He didn't want to think of the grief in the scout's optics. Didn't want to think of his own muted disappointment that it was Bumblebee and not Ratchet who had come to say goodbye.

Despite only having been revived a quartex prior, Kaon was _bustling_ with life. Mechs of all shapes and sizes clustered through the streets. The majority of them were Decepticons, but Optimus was heartened to see a handful of Autobots here and there. Though he longed to reach out to his kind, he held himself in check. His processor was all too happy to supply him the with unspeakable tortures and deaths that would be inflicted upon any well-meaning bot. He had seen first-hand what Megatron was willing to do to members of his own faction who had transgressed -- the collective memory of which still lurked in Darkmount's halls -- and had no delusions of being able to stay the other's wrath.

A coldly rational part of him said _if_ he was to accept help, it needed to be from the other faction. At least that way, no Autobots would be harmed in the fallout.

But though Optimus had no lost love for the majority of the Decepticons... at the same time, he wouldn't wish Megatron's more creative punishments on anyone, regardless of their faction.

As such, he kept to the shadows, changing to root form as soon as he reached the city walls.

Even though he was forced into the position of observer here too, the difference between the interactions of the denizens here and the inhabitants of Darkmount was like that of Hadean and Luna. Yes, the cons were still more prone to violence and vulgarity than their Autobot counterparts, but it was... oddly thrilling, to see honest friendship and rapport out on the streets. Whether it was two veterans playing a round of brassknuckles or a trine squabbling merrily in a commpub or a gaggle of vendors pawning scavenged data tablets, it was clear every spark was living life as best suited them. And there was beauty in such a sight.

The hovel Optimus found was a poor comparison to the magnificent apartments he had fled from but he didn't care the slightest. As he rearranged the rubble to form a small protective perimeter, he realised how much he had missed the company of unknown others.

He drew a long invent before carefully extracting a single cube of energon from his subspace.

Back in the fortress, Megatron insisted they refuel together. As such, Optimus was loathe to use his intakes, insteading siphoning up energon by means of a utility cable.

But there were no optics trained on him here, not amidst the rubble. And so Optimus brought the cube to his mouth, sliding his battlemask back with a relish, before beginning to drink. It was the first time since the bonding ceremony that he had tasted energon proper and its flavour nearly overwhelmed him.

Though it was entirely likely -- especially if, as he suspected, Megatron had placed a tracker somewhere on his frame -- that his freedom would not last long, he was determined to enjoy at least one night where he could recharge in peace. After his fuel tanks were suitably replenished, he drifted into a content recharge, caring not for the charge, faintly pulsing between his legs.

\---

Optimus woke to a prodding sensation against his left pauldron.

He onlined his optics in a milliklik and was treated to the sight of a mechling.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted out.

The mechling, who couldn't have been more than fifteen vorns old, narrowed his red optics.

"I should be asking you that," he replied, "Beloved Consort."

Optimus felt his faceplates heating up and quickly snapped his battlemask back in place, humiliated at having been recognised.

"I am observing the going-on's of the inner city," he eventually answered, when the mechling made no move to leave.

The mechling raised a skeptical optic ridge. "Does the Emperor know you're here?"

"The Emperor recommended it," Optimus coolly replied. It was technically true, in that Megatron had goaded him into their current game of terracat and cyberbeast. Yet the mechling's gaze remained skeptical.

The second silence was broken by the rumble of near empty fuel tanks.

It was Optimus' turn to raise an optic ridge. Upon further examination, it was clear the dullness of the mechling's paint had little to do with their current surroundings and everything to do with malnourishment.

He took a chance then, extracting two cubes from his subspace. The flash of interest in the mechling's optics at the sight of them was impossible to miss.

With deliberate care, Optimus set one of the cubes down between them. He extracted his own utility cable before sticking it in the remaining energon cube.

Even though it was entirely likely this mechling would hand him over to Megatron, he was determined to show this potential enemy some scrap of kindness. It would be another victory for his bondmate, he rationalised, if he were to spurn his own better nature out of fear.

After a klik, the mechling dropped to the floor and seized the proffered cube, knocking it back into his intakes with an exultant cry.

Embarrassingly enough, the exultant sound reminded Optimus was his own unmet needs. He swallowed hard, finishing off the rest of his own energon, determined to ignore the unspeakable opportunity.

Logic dictated that he flee.

But his spark, soft as ever, was beside itself in the company of... well, someone (anyone) who wasn't Megatron. It wanted to engage, to speak, to listen... any sort of interaction that didn't end in undesired interface, in short.

Surprisingly enough, the mechling was the first to speak. He cleared his invents awkwardly and gestured to the now-empty cube.

"I don't suppose you have another?" he asked.

"I do," Optimus admitted after a pause. He reached into his subspace and passed over another cube. This one too, was messily consumed by the mechling.

At last, Optimus gathered his own wits and posed a question of his own:

"Are there many starving robots out here?"

"I'm _not_ starving," the mechling snapped. Without meaning to, Optimus' infrared sensors detected the heat building in the other's faceplates.

"Hungry, then," he was quick to amend.

The mechling gave a bark of a laugh that had no place in a vocaliser of his age group. "Where _aren't_ there hungry robots these days?" he countered.

Optimus frowned. He had been under the impression that Decepticon refugees would be well cared for. Given room and board and put on the track to employment or education. That was standard procedure in Iacon, at least.

He had no idea how to breach this topic however and did not want to risk offending the other further. Despite this, his spark still longed for conversation.

Optimus swallowed and tried a different approach: "How did you make your way back?" he asked.

"I was on the _Resimbule_ ," the mechling replied after another pause. And then, when the name clearly meant nothing, he added: "A slave ship from Alphus. The only problem is, there's no place for slaves in your Emperor's New Cybertron and there's no work for mechs like me."

The _and so we starve_ went unsaid.

Optimus swallowed, uncomfortable with the unpleasant truth that had been presented before him. In his mind, he liked to think that all Decepticons were enjoying the spoils of the war. That it was only the Autobots that were struggling to piece their society back together from the table scraps they'd be allotted. But the mechling before him was proof to the contrary.

"What about school?" Optimus asked.

The mechling frowned. "You mean the re-education centres?"

"No, I mean -- _school_. A place where you can learn to be, well..." _not a slave_. But Optimus' own pre-war memories returned with a vengeance and he remembered that even in Iacon, only the wealthy could afford tutors. The rest were left to flounder on their own.

He ignored the Maker on one shoulder telling him to return to Darkmount to intervene on this mechling's behalf. He also ignored the Unmaker on his other shoulder telling him to toss the other to the side and hold on tight to his newfound freedom.

Instead, a third option presented itself.

"I can teach you," he blurted out.

The mechling was understandably wary. "Teach me _what_?" he demanded.

"To read. To write."

A derisive snort. "What use are such things to a slave?"

"They are a means of breaking the chains of slavery," Optimus rallied.

The other fixed him with a calculating look. _I don't see how that's helped your situation_ , it said.

Optimus dropped his gaze, suitably chastened. He forced himself to his pedes, biting back a wince at the discomfort the motion caused his valve, and made to leave.

"Wait!"

Optimus, ever the fool, turned.

"I changed my mind," the mechling said. Even Optimus could sense the falsehood in the other's field. But his better nature triumphed and he thought to himself: I've no need to isolate myself further. The mechling continued, tugging further at his spark: "I want to learn. If you're still willing to teach me..."

Despite the trepidation that coursed through his cabling, Optimus found himself treating the other to a genuine smile. It was the first he had mustered since the restoration of their homeworld.

"Of course," he answered, sitting himself back down amidst the ruins and retrieving a datapad.

\---

Optimus was not so much a fool as to hope anything would come of the fledgling mentorship position he had established with E-228. Even after the passing of two orns, he was certain that the other pede would drop -- and soon.

The palace footsoldiers came on the third orn of his departure. They stomped through the streets, marching in twin columns of three mechs each with the rubble crunching beneath their pedes.

The sight of them was enough to stop Optimus' spark.

He cut the lesson short abruptly, ignoring the mechling's surprised jerk as the datapad was yanked from his grasp, and fled.

E-228 found him later, in another set of slums, encircled by another heap of rumble.

"You lied," the mechling accused.

Optimus said nothing.

"Those troopers are looking for you," the other pressed.

And still, Optimus said nothing.

"I've heard stories of the Emperor. He'll overturn every stone, he'll raze every -- "

" _Stop_ ," Optimus rasped, clenching his denta, his fist, his optics. It was too much. He didn't need any additional reminders of the monster he was bonded to. The monster that had wrested control over his own body. The monster that held all of Iacon over his helm as a de facto hostage.

The three orns of freedom were too much. His tanks roiled at the thought of return.

When Optimus came to his senses, onlining optics he hadn't even realised he had shuttered, he was surprised to find E-228 was still there.

And still, he knew better than to hope. He turned his gaze from his student of three orns, pushing down the joy he had felt in the act of imparting knowledge to a willing acolyte, and concentrated instead on how he might maneuver around the roaming guards while making his way out of the city proper.

The mechling interrupted his processes with an audible reset of his vocaliser.

Optimus looked his way at last.

"There are... tunnels," the other lamely started. And then, when Optimus gave no response: "The tunnels head this way and that. I've heard some of them even reach Kalis."

Optimus' spark leapt at the mention of Iacon's sister city. If he could make his way to Kalis, under Decepticon control though it surely was, surely there would be enough Autobots to...

To be sacrificed to Megatron's wrath.

Optimus shook his helm.

"I cannot get anyone else involved," he whispered.

"You don't have to," E-228 insisted. His vocaliser took on a keening pitch. "I could give you the coordinates and you could make your way to them yourself and..."

He trailed off, silenced by Optimus' firm rejection.

A breem passed. And then another. Neither of them made any attempt to move.

Finally, the mechling spoke again:

"What will you do now?"

It was the genuine concern in the other's tone -- or rather, his own reaction to it -- that jolted Optimus to his core. This mechling was no one, certainly not who he wanted him to be, and yet he was the only con who had shown him a sliver of compassion in a quartex. He pushed himself to his pedes, optics suddenly filled with a vivid image of E-228 broken into scrap components.

"I'm sorry," he said, vocalised glitching out from the spikes in his EM field. "I'm sorry," he repeated, "But I must leave you now."

He shifted into truck mode and dove out into the alley proper. His circuitry was a mess of mixed signals and he only realised his mistake when he barreled into the same group of soldiers half a groon later.

"What the -- " one of them said.

"Weapons down!" the squad leader barked. "Do not, under any circumstance, engage!"

Optimus could take no pleasure in being allowed to proceed unimpeded. He wondered if Megatron would chase him until his fuel tanks drained this time. Maybe he would have him pass out from unrealised overload.

His bondmate did not keep him waiting. Within a breem of the rendezvous with the squad, an explosion -- marking the start of supersonic travel -- rattled the windows and walls of the alley. Megatron, in jet mode, shot out from the direction of the fortress, and this time, wasted no time in overtaking him.

"Optimus!" the warlord turned Emperor snarled, shifting forms in midair so that his true frame could land on Optimus' carriage with a sickening _crunch_. "Stop this instant. Change back."

Every line of conscious code in his processor screamed in defiance, but it was for naught. Optimus was forced to cut his engines, brakes screeching to a halt in a dead end, before he completed the rest of the command.

His own EM field was forcibly tangled with the other's and he was treated to that sickening mix of satisfaction and self-aggrandisement. And if Optimus detected a sliver of relief thrown in, he knew it was but a mistake from his own frayed field.

"Well," Megatron purred, dropping to his haunches to better inspect his consort, "You're looking well." He ran a servos across Optimus' chest plates, taking in the healthy sheen of paint. "Who would have thought," he continued, even as he forced Optimus to spread his legs so as to slot himself neatly in the space between, "That the noble Optimus Prime might thrive amidst the sparkless frames of Kaon?"

Optimus offlined his optics, refusing to rise to the bait.

Megatron didn't seem to care, tapping his interface panel instead. It slid open, as it was required to do, and Optimus helplessly bucked his hips as the other traced a cool knuckle against the still-swollen folds of his valve.

"A pity I cannot say the same for this part of you," Megatron chuckled.

Optimus heard and then felt the other release his own spike. There was no drawn-out play this time; Megatron sank himself in and released a pleased exvent in the motion. The orns apart had left their mark; Optimus felt a marked stretch in his calipers that translated into additional pleasure for his bondmate.

Mine, Megatron's field proudly thrummed. Mine, mine, _mine_.

Optimus swallowed, willing his tanks to keep from purging.

"Tell me, Prime," Megatron began, taking clear relish in claiming him again. His servos stroked the exposed cables near Optimus' hips, forcing Optimus' frame into another upward jolt. "Did you have company while we were apart?"

Optimus grit his denta.

"Prime," Megatron chided. His voice took on a dangerous slant. "Answer me. And turn your optics on while you're at it."

Optimus thrashed, fighting both the slave coding and the tremors of pleasure Megatron's spike was sending throughout his frame. Resistance was futile of course and he found his optics re-engaging at the snap of servos.

"Yes," he ground out.

Megatron raised an optic ridge. "Oh?" he said. Rather than pursue that line of questioning, he instead began to thrust. Slowly, at first, so that Optimus' valve could not help but acclimate, but as he picked up the pace, Optimus heard himself gasping in stunted pleasure.

"Come now Prime," Megatron whispered, leaning over him and crowding too too close. "I concede you've put up a noble fight, but enough is enough. Let your frame enjoy itself for once." Again, his servos dragged themselves up Optimus' frame, toying with the inhibitor.

Optimus screamed. His hips jerked up and his valve clenched down but true overload continued to elude him. The one silver lining from his momentary loss of control was that the clenching of his valve was enough to send Megatron past the brink. He felt the other thrust in one final time, deeper than he'd gone before, and then his valve was awash with transfluid. Yet again.

But there was no reprieve. Not where his bondmate was concerned.

As soon as his systems were sufficiently cool, Megatron pulled away so that he could loom over Optimus once more.

"Well?" he pressed, giving a little roll of his hips that resulted in a telling squelch of displaced transfluid.

Optimus said nothing, turning his head to look at the left wall. He forced his own systems to cycle down, intent on ignoring his unreleased charge.

Megatron made a disappointed click in the back of his vocaliser. His grip tightened and for a moment, Optimus dreaded a second round. But then he pulled out and began assiduously cleaning Optimus' valve once more.

"Someday, my consort," the Emperor promised, "You will beg for it. And your cries will be the sweetest sound to ever leave your intakes." Then he drew three circles on the inside of Optimus' thigh, permitting him to close his panel, before shifting into alt mode and rocketing them both into the air.

As Optimus felt the wind course against his face plates -- spark and field dropping at the sight of Darkmount -- he took solace in the knowledge that Megatron, likely due to some twisted sense of sportsmanship -- did _not_ have him implanted with a tracking device.

The challenge, he reassured himself, still stood.


	3. The Consort and the Pavilion

The third attempt ended up as another exercise in futility. This time, Optimus couldn't even make it clear of the gardens. It wasn't that security had been tightened or that the walls had been heightened, but due to the second intrusive object his bondmate had wedged between his legs.

Unlike the previous one, there was no motor and therefore no vibration. But the charge it built up in him was no less exhausting.

He could still vividly remember how Megatron had worked it into him.

It had been in the immediate aftermath of his second escape attempt, as he desperately tried not to think of the mechling he had left in the slums, reiterating to himself that his own presence was a persistent threat and even if he hadn't so much as touched the other, Megatron would still have considered their acquaintance a transgression. And so Optimus had been carted to the baths and scrubbed and polished and buffed; business as usual. Then Megatron had led him back to the opulent prison that was their shared berthroom and despite the joor, had taken him once more on the berth.

The subsequent two bouts of interfacing were misery enough -- without even going into his own unfulfilled charge -- but then Megatron had insisted on _lingering_. He had pulled his spike out and depressurised it, but refrained from giving Optimus permission to cover his own interface panel, instead tracing his claws against his captive's folds.

"So wet," the warlord praised, "And hot and _tight_. How perfectly we fit together, hm?"

Optimus turned his head to the side then, swallowing another purge.

"I can't help but wonder though..." Megatron continued, "If your good health is courtesy of that brief respite."

The thoughtful tone his voice had taken was enough to jolt Optimus to attention. He turned his head, looking at Megatron while drawing a stilted invent.

A cessation of interfacing was a poor substitute for freedom but if Megatron was offering it, it would certainly be an improvement over their present arrangement.

"Do you really mean it?" he asked, when Megatron merely met his gaze.

"Hmm," the other gave a thoughtful hum, "Consider it an experiment, if you will." And then, when Optimus shuddered at his tone, the hum turned into that familiar cruel chuckle and Megatron returned to stroking at Optimus' outermost folds. "Don't fret," he reassured his captive, "I have brought a little something, so that my most favourite place does not feel neglected."

And with that, he reached into his own subspace and dug out a small circle, no wider than two of Optimus' own fingers (and therefore significantly smaller than the spike that had just been driven deep in him) and slipped it inside Optimus' valve. After the usual post-interface cleaning, Megatron permitted him to close his interface panel.

"There you are," the warlord purred. He rubbed at Optimus' hips before gently biting down on the left audial. "Let's try for a chord, shall we?"

And then he had rolled to the other side of the berth, leaving Optimus to acquaint himself with the... thing... that was currently wedged in his valve.

True to his glyphs, in the six orns since Megatron had put that thing in him, Megatron had not once attempted interface. Yet Optimus felt no reprieve. He was still confined to their berthroom more often than not and his bondmate made a point of recharging with him. By the third orn, he'd been unable to stop the tremors that racked his frame as the sphere slowly but steadily... _expanded_.

It was now the eve of the seventh orn -- which meant he was only _halfway_ through the chord Megatron had intended, and he had missed two nights of recharge already. The problem was the persistent fullness in his valve which grew orn by orn. Presently, almost all of his processes were geared towards reaching overload. It didn't matter how resolutely he terminated them for they popped up in the centre of his HUD within kliks.

Cue his present inglorious state.

He was hunched over behind a statue of the original Megatronus which served as the centrepiece in the Pavilion of Triumph. Said pavilion had been made prematurely in the early days of the war. Of course Megatron would restore it to its former glory with the power of the Omega Lock. Optimus was reluctantly grateful for the statue, which provided him some modicum of privacy, as he tried not to think of the rivulets of lubricant that were steadily making their way down his thighs.

Uncaring of either processor or spark, his valve gave another insistent contraction.

 _Overload needed, overload needed_ , his HUD screamed. His fingers itched to open his panel, to extract the toy, but as soon as they drifted near, some line of code he couldn't access much less alter forced them back. It was as if there was a miniature force field centred about his panel.

It was Megatron's doing. As everything was Megatron's doing.

And so his third escape attempt gifted him but half a _joor_ of freedom, most of which was spent huddled in a miserable ball behind said statue.

His cooling fans were spinning so quickly, he didn't even notice the sound of approaching pedesteps. When a clawed servos touched his shoulder, he spun around, determined to channel his righteous and _violent_ fury... only to be met with Megatron's face and the slew of _Overload needed, overload needed, overload needed_ that followed which quickly overwhelmed his HUD.

In the span of a milliklik, Optimus was forced to turn away, burying his head in his own servos as he slumped even further.

There would be no reprieve. Not while Megatron was aiming to keep the expander in him for a whole _chord_.

It was the indignity he hated the most. Decepticons liked to think the Autobots were complete prudes who led their lives like the consecrated Priests of Primus. This was hardly the case but at the same time, Autobots desired intimacy, privacy, and above all, autonomy, in interface.

Optimus couldn't even dredge up the sufficient processing power to vocalise these thoughts, for the damn thing between his legs had reduced him to a single interface-minded module. And so he sat, curled up in a ball of unquenched desire, and waited for Megatron to haul him back.

As is on cue, a servos moved to grip his upper arm.

 _Here it comes,_ he thought, tanks roiling.

With characteristic drive, Megatron hauled him upright. Optimus' processor was so overwhelmed then, it wasn't until he heard Megatron's invent that he realised his own cooling fans had finally given out.

"You're even wetter than the first time," Megatron noted, reaching out with his other servos to sample some of the lubricant on Optimus' left thigh. Optimus would have shifted, or better yet shirked away, but even standing upright was too much for him.

 _Overload needed, overload needed, overload needed,_ his HUD helpfully supplied. He had given up trying to kill the underlying processes and his screen was presently flooded with them.

Instead of transforming and hauling them both back to the berthroom, Megatron opted to push him backwards. Optimus went, half-numb from the need between his legs, and found his aft connecting with the statue.

Unlike the many statues of the mech before him, Megatronus the Prime had been sculpted in a seated position in the Pavilion of Triumph. He was resting on a diamanite throne (the selfsame style of throne that now stood in Megatron's audience hall) with an energon extractor in one servos and a data scroll in the other.

Which meant that Optimus was now seated in the statue's lap.

Megatron took him by the hips and scooted him back and he _went_ , pliant as a pit-forsaken drone. Within the klik, Optimus was dimly aware of his backstruts pressed against the statue's chest, of his legs draped over the statue's robes. A humiliated whimper left his vocaliser as he realised where his lubricant would be pooling.

"So wet," Megatron repeated, sinking down so that his optics were level with Optimus' interface panel.

 _Oh no_ , thought Optimus. _He can't_ \-- a panicked process began and ended. _Not on the statue of his namesake_ \-- another one started. They were all sent to the backlog, drowned in the endless torrent of baser needs.

Megatron's engines gave a telling rev, as if Optimus needed any more confirmation.

"I could smell you," Megatron purred, pulling himself up by the statue's armrests so he could look at Optimus. "So wet. So wanting." And then he slid back down and began to stroke his claws against Optimus' inner thighs.

There came a sob, muffled by a battlemask.

"Primus," Megatron continued, "You really need this, don't you?"

Optimus shook his helm, even as his hips thrusted blindly in his captor's direction.

After orns and orns of telling himself that he didn't need to overload, that his processor was better than his frame, that overload wouldn't be satisfying in any case when it came at the spike and servos of his arch rival, this additional loss of control was all the more appalling.

When Megatron tapped the panel cover and a _snik_ could be heard beneath the warlord's engine, Optimus needed to bite down on his glossa, hard enough to taste his own energon, to keep from begging.

It didn't do anything to help the messages that had absolutely filled his HUD. That were continuing to fill his HUD.

_Overload needed, overload needed, overload needed --_

Later on, Ratchet would tell him that mechs simply were not built to withstand this sort of privation. That it was good he capitulated when he did, lest his internal code become properly glitched.

But he was not be comforted in the here and now, not when his frame was to betray him so wholly. Yet again.

Just another reminder, he grimly thought, that his life was no longer his own.

He was completely adrift in the inferno of his own charge when Megatron gingerly wedged a claw between his folds, carefully hooking it against one of the -- sides, or something -- of the toy.

He was gasping and sobbing, vocaliser cutting out three times in a klik, throughout the process. His hips were jerking uselessly up and the puddle of lubricant in the statue's lap could only be described as 'copious' and at some point in the three and a half breems it took to extract the thing that had been there for six _orns_ , Optimus realised he had snapped his battlemask back.

It was entirely so his intakes could cycle more effeciently, but he was not so far gone to know how it would be interpreted.

Indeed, as soon as Megatron had the thing in his claws, he drew back up. There was a distinctly predatorial slant to his gaze.

"About time," he said, leaning down and crushing their intakes together.

Were it not for the damn inhibitor, Optimus would've overloaded from the kiss alone.

As it was, he gave another gasp-sob that was muffled by Megatron's own intake, before his servos were scrabbling up and over, scratching and pawing and _clawing_ at spiked pauldrons.

And as for his valve --

He _thought_ he would feel relief. He had expected to be grateful once the unpleasant fullness left him.

Instead, he felt empty. It was as if someone had taken a polisher to the inside of his spark chamber and hallowed a servos-full of cabling out. He could feel his calipers trying to squeeze themselves shut but it was no use. He had, after all, been stretched out for six orns.

And Megatron had intended to torture him for a _chord_.

When his captor broke the kiss, Optimus heard his own cooling fans roar back to life. It seemed that the removal of the toy freed up a little processing power -- enough for his systems to register his own overheated state.

He was gasping hard, still trying to clench his valve if only to do away with that blasted _hallowness_ , which was why he didn't notice Megatron's servos -- or more accurately, what it held -- until it was too late.

When the toy that had been in his valve was now gently but firmly wedged in his _intakes_ , Optimus gagged. He would be spluttering and coughing if the thing would let him. As it was, he settled for glaring at Megatron and working desperately to loosen his jaw.

Primus, he could _taste_ himself!

"Don't make that face," Megatron murmured, husky. Did he know he'd given a command? Optimus was forced to soften his expression in any case. Megatron reached out, brushing his clawtips against Optimus' exposed cheek. "I can't have every mech in the fortress waking up to your screams."

 _Liar_ , Optimus thought, though he knew any protest was another exercise in futility. Megatron only wanted an excuse to keep his battlemask open. He offlined his optics and focused on venting.

Just as well, as the servos wrapped themselves about his hips and, with but a thrust, Megatron's spike found its way back into his valve.

As was expected, there was a difference. His valve had been stretched for half a chord, after all. There wasn't any resistance to the initial thrust and Optimus was horrified to discover that even when he clenched up, he couldn't fully wrap around the spike.

How loose had the toy rendered him?!

Some of the horror must've shone through when he inadvertently turned on his optics for Megatron chuckled, running circles about his cabling while rolling his own hips.

"A change of pace is pleasant, no?" he asked.

Optimus would have retorted, were it not for the gag in his mouth and his own need for overload.

He was instead taken unawares a second time (in the span of a breem) when Megatron shrugged his arms off of his pauldrons, sliding his servos down to Optimus' legs. In a single smooth motion -- so fast Optimus' fans hitched in the process -- Megatron shoved him even closer against the statue, forcing Optimus' knees over his shoulders so as to --

Even with the gag and the cooling fans and the squelching of their interface panels, Optimus could make out his own keening moan.

Because there -- this -- that --

"Blood of Unicron," Megatron swore, giving an experimental thrust, "You're even wetter than before."

And then he was giving mercy, reaching out and disabling the inhibitor and Optimus remembered very little else.

His entire frame was screaming, gag or no gag, and his voicebox _hurt_ at the end of it.

The damn HUD which was formerly cluttered with the same dire message instantly rebooted as soon as overload hit and his screen -- and processor -- culminated in the same string of messages.

Yes, yes, yes, _yes_.

He was meeting Megatron, thrust for thrust. His own servos were scrabbling against the statue's robes. His valve was shrieking in overwrought pleasure, spurting and spasming like a pit-forsaken _fountain_ and he would be humiliated six ways to Iacon if he were in his own mind.

Yes, yes, _yes_. His processor rang out.

Optimus offlined to the familiar rush of transfluid between his legs.

\---

Optimus came to in the morning of the following orn. Evidently the two nights of missed recharge had caught up to him. In his offlined state, he found he had been moved from the pavilion back into the berthroom.

As sensation slowly returned to his limbs, he immediately noticed the weight above him, effectively pinning him to the berth. Megatron, of course. And he was still hilt-deep in Optimus' valve.

The events of the previous night -- as well as his third botched escape attempt -- caught up to him. He drew a harsh invent, grateful to discover his battlemask was back in place. Evidently Megatron had removed the makeshift gag sometime in the night. But he could not delete the memories of his own actions. His wanton gasps and moans, how he was all but _begging_ to be spiked, to be given the chance to overload...

It was a mortifying reminder of how little control he had over his frame.

And to make matters worse, he discovered, in his routine diagnostic, that somewhere in the enthusiastic cries of _yes_ that had momentarily flooded his HUD, he had said 'yes' to activating his own gestational protocols. Said protocols could not be disabled, not without external help.

Optimus desperately ran an internal scan of his chamber. Megatron's spike had evidently hit it, but it hadn't received enough transfluid to warrant the initiation of the newspark sequence -- and with it, his own still-dormant carrier code.

Wedged beneath his bondmate, Optimus did his best not to squirm as despair ate away at his spark.

He had capitulated when it mattered most. The one right that had been afforded to him, and he had bartered it away like a two hundred credit sharemech. Everything that followed -- including the inevitable sparking -- was his fault.

Thankfully, his better nature was quick to supply him with hope. First, he hadn't been sparked yet. And second, the challenge was still in play. Now that the damn toy was out of him, he was certain he'd make it a lot farther the next time.

And so he forced his optics to shutter closed. Forced his vents to even out.

Freedom would come in time, he reassured himself. He simply needed to hold out until then.


	4. The Consort and the Harbor

Very little forethought had gone into his subsequent escape attempt. The context was that some delegation or another had been sent to the Kaonian docks, except then Soundwave had gotten wind of a slave deal. Megatron, who was considerably incensed at the idea of _slavery_ going on beneath his nasal ridge, had substituted himself for the intended delegation and deigned to drag his consort along for the ride.

On one servos, it was certainly better than whatever they would have gotten up to otherwise. On the other servos, his bondmate's hypocrisy was galling. Or it would have been if Optimus weren't so used to it.

It was as the Head of Communications had said: instead of the expected fifty quartexes worth of flossilite girders, the shipment from Uraya was instead comprised of slaves. Reeking of purged tanks and rust and little older than the mechling Optimus had met out in the rubble pits, Optimus counted thirty-seven mechs before he was pushed to the side.

The Urayan merchants received a swift and public humiliation as the Emperor declared -- at a volume that would wake the dead -- slavery to have no place in his restored Cybertron.

No place besides the berthroom, Optimus bitterly thought.

And then his attention was captured by another ship. Like the whole fleet at present, this ship was also converted from wartime usage. Unlike the unfortunately designated _Lachrymae_ , the cargo being loaded aboard the _Eon of Metal_ was clearly inaminate. Slabs of mined regenor from the mines of Kaon, it appeared.

Optimus spared a quick glance at his conjux. Megatron was still espousing the virtues of a slave-free society. His audience was enraptured -- or perhaps simply vindicated. In any case, no bot paid Optimus any heed as he slipped away from the crowd and -- in a stroke of good luck -- managed to hop onboard the refitted cargo ship right as the landing bridge was pulled up.

His spark thrummed wildly in his chassis as he watched Kaon -- docks and all -- disappear over the horizon.

Could it really be so easy?

For the whole of the first orn -- up until Hadean dropped out from view -- he trained his optics on the horizon, keeping a watch out for his bondmate's alt mode blasting through the skies. But the expected pursuit never came. And so Optimus shifted into his own alt mode, blending in amongst the chunks of regenor, and drifted off into a fitful recharge.

In the time before the war, a great ship could have traversed the length of the Mithril Sea in a single orn and the width of the Sea of Rust in twice that. But the destruction of Crystal City and the decavorns of research there meant that supersonic nautical travel remained a privilege of the past.

Optimus woke the following orn, carefully opening one headlight and then another to confirm there was no company. After ascertaining that no other mech had so much as gone down to check on the regenor, he quickly shifted back and extracted a cube of energon from his subspace.

He needed a plan.

The _Eon of Metal_ was likely headed to Uraya, situated at the northwest border of Kaon. Uraya technically shared a nautical border with Iacon, but the currents of the Sea of Rust there were impossible to ford, even at the height of the Golden Age. No, if Optimus had any hope of making it to the Autobot capital, he would have to reach it by means of Vos.

Except... even if he _did_ reach Iacon, then what? Everyone knew the only reason Megatron had allowed the autobots, well, autonomy there was because of their agreement. But at the same time, Optimus reasoned, what if this was just another unspoken rule in their game? Megatron had been surprisingly sporting, even in the face of the staggered odds.

The question was: was he willing to stake the future of the fledgling Autobot outpost on his theory?

As per usual, despite the agonising amount of rationalisation his processor was grinding through, he couldn't make that sort of bet. Not with those sorts of stakes. And Megatron probably knew it.

He thought back to the tunnels the mechling had told him of. The tunnels that supposedly wrapped around the inside of their planet and which had some openings in Kalis.

Kalis was dangerously close to Iacon. But at the same time, still far away enough that a continent-wide search would be infeasible.

The plan he settled on was thus: after the ship docked at Uraya, he would sneak off and try to find the entrance to some of those underground tunnels the mechling had told him of. And then, assuming they led to Kalis after all, he would scrape out a living on the absolute periphery, content never to truly interact with the Autobots so long as it meant Megatron's hand was stayed. With any luck, maybe his bondmate would think he'd left Cybertron entirely. That would certainly lengthen his lead. And if the tunnels didn't exist or didn't lead to where the mechling thought they would... well, Optimus would recalibrate then.

It didn't really matter, he supposed, since any orn spent away from his bondmate was an orn well spent.

\---

The second orn of freedom was spent in a similar way to the first, sneaking glances out the portside window at the endless stretch of silvery-blue waves. Optimus drank his energon ration with relish, only stopping himself from noisily slurping the dregs at the last klik.

The same could not be said for the night cycle. He kept having dreams. Dreams of ruby-red optics and deadly but gentle claws. Dreams filled with a dark and husky voice that chuckled every so often.

Optimus woke with a start, exventing hard.

He didn't need to feel his interface panel to know a charge was building.

He bit back a curse at how the pit-forsaken bond refused to be set aside. Stewing was pointless however, and Hadean was still nowhere to be seen. A quick glance at his chronometer told him it was still ten and a half joors to daybreak. Barely after midnight, then.

After half a joor wasted tossing and turning -- and cursing the Slagmaker for rendering him incapable of _relieving his own charge_ \-- Optimus grudgingly shifted into alt mode. It didn't help with the charge, but at least he could force himself into a semi-restful state then.

Morning came. Hadean made its way back across the sky. And Optimus' charge was still present.

In an act of frustration, he pulled up his navigational unit, attempting to track how close the ship was to Uraya.

It was, in retrospect, something he should have done a quartex ago. But between the rebuilding of their world and the joke of a bonding ceremony and Megatron's persistent attentions, he had never really needed it. Until now.

According to his internal latitude and longitude metrics, the ship was sailing _over_ Uraya. Optimus quickly shifted out of alt mode and went to the window to double-check. Sure enough, the Mithril Sea was where it had been the previous orn: right beneath their keel.

His first guess was that the slave code -- neutered though it had been -- had somehow interfered with his navigational unit. Except then his chronometer should have also been affected. And it wasn't.

Optimus furrowed his optic ridges, momentarily pulled away from his own charge. It wasn't impossible that Megatron had rearranged the continents with the Omega Lock, though Optimus figured the other would have gloated about this as well. Primus, the warlord never passed up a chance at self-aggrandisement!

As he was mulling over the discrepancy, the entire ship lurched to the left. Optimus quickly shifted back, even as the answer alighted upon his processor.

The tectonic plates. Or, as Cybertronians called it, the Yawn of Primus.

He would have to recalibrate his internal navigational unit as soon as possible. It would be a simple line of code... if Ratchet were there it would take no more than a breem. But he couldn't turn to Ratchet. Couldn't turn to anyone, in fact.

Still, he was heartened at the knowledge that he wasn't glitched. Not in this regard, at least. As relief swept through him, his valve gave a displeased twitch, as if to remind him of its sorry state.

But there was nothing to be done for it. In any case, Optimus was a veteran at ignoring his own baser needs. He forcibly altered the priority of the warning message and ran through a couple self-diagnostics to pass the time.

Right as Hadean drifted over the edge of the horizon, the ship's horn gave a great bellow. There was a clatter of pedes above deck, running from left to right, and Optimus turned his rearview mirrors to catch the starboard. Land was in sight.

The _Eon of Metal_ had made it across the Mithril Sea.

Even though this was likely a regular journey for the refitted cargo ship, the sight of land -- after two and a half orns at sea -- was enough to make Optimus' spark skip a beat.

Freedom, every nanite in his frame sang. Freedom, freedom, freedom.

It was actually to his benefit that the ship made landfall under the cover of night as it greatly eased his sneaking off of it.

He rolled off the disembarkation bridge, still in his alt form, fully intending to make a sharp left or right, whatever brought him to the end of the docks... only to be met with a series of blinding floodlights and -- _fanfare_.

The victory march that had been composed on the occasion of his bondmate's coronation twinkled through the cold air.

" _What_ in the name of Primus -- " a crewmember of the ship exclaimed.

Optimus' spark sank further when the wave of unfamiliar bots parted like soldiers out in the field.

"Optimus," Megatron greeted, voice and field both full of good cheer. "There you are. Come, on your pedes. The good bots of Polyhex have been clamoring for a sight of you."

He strode forward to face Optimus, who was in the process of reluctantly shifting back to root mode. As soon as his servos had disentangled itself, Megatron seized upon him. Another clawed hand found its way around his waist and he was pulled close.

"Behold!" Megatron's voice boomed, as pleasure rumbled from chassis to chassis. "My beloved consort, in the mesh. Optimus Prime."

\---

Megatron had a pit-forsaken _delegation_ waiting for him on the docks. Every pict taken, every question asked, was another blow to Optimus' pride. As usual, the bulk of his hatred was directed inward.

He shouldn't have hoped.

He shouldn't have thought the Slagmaker capable of sportsmanship.

After the fiasco with the slums, was it any wonder that he would be tagged and chipped like a cyberbeast?

He shouldn't have expected anything more.

On and on this internal berating continued until he was pushed onto another opulent berth. They were now in the Electoral Palace of Polyhex, he realised, and though the Decepticons had redone the interior, the underlying architecture remained unchanged.

His own forces had been responsible for the bombing of Polyhex's environs. The warrior who had given the kill-order had been demoted. Still, his presence here was another reminder of his larger failure to Cybertron as a whole.

He was pulled away from his dark thoughts by the unwanted tap of claws against his interface panel. The cover slid to the side and Megatron drew close, properly crowding against him and causing their EM fields to mingle anew.

"Mm," the warlord purred, pleased as ever. He rubbed one knuckle against the edge of Optimus' quivering folds. "Wet again, I see."

With the other servos he reached up to tap at Optimus' battlemask.

"It would be easier," he continued, "If you knew yourself better."

"I know myself perfectly," Optimus snapped, " _You_ are the ignorant one here!"

Megatron gave the same dark chuckle from Optimus' dreams. He pushed his finger in deeper, before running his thumb against the outermost fold.

"Ignorant, you say?" he mused. "My dear Prime, I shudder to think of the state you were in, before you were mine."

Then he pulled his finger out and released his own spike. Without meaning to, Optimus found himself clenching up at the first thrust, fully expecting pain. Except the expander from last time -- which his glossa still remembered the taste of -- had evidently gone above and beyond because even after a chord without, his valve was still _loose_ enough to accept his bondmate's spike.

Two sets of cooling fans clicked on as Megatron sank himself to the hilt.

Optimus dissociated himself, turning his helm to look at the painting adorning the wall. He had never been in these rooms before the war, but he was certain the agony radiating from the piece could have only been composed in the twilight of the Golden Age.

Or perhaps, his inner processor grimly mused, he was simply projecting.

Megatron, in any case, was quick to resume his usual measured thrusting. Back and forth; in and out; as if Optimus' valve did not already know every ridge and curve of his spike. Optimus was to get no true pleasure from the act and though his HUD had the odd pop-up requesting overload, dropping the priority level of said messages was a simple affair.

And then Megatron was overloading in him in a matter of kliks, flooding his insides with transfluid anew. His valve clenched up, begging him for similar release, and Optimus ignored it, concentrating on evening out his own vents.

His critical error was in relaxing when the other pulled out.

"I should like to hear you beg again," Megatron said.

Optimus didn't even turn to look at him.

Never one to be deterred by silence, Megatron's servos were upon him in a milliklik. Optimus was prepared for a continued assault on his valve then, teasing and stretching until he was reduced to another helpless wreck. He was not prepared for the warlord to instead reroute his own charge to the tips of his claws, creating a electrifying sensation as said fingers skirted up and down Optimus' own plating.

He couldn't even find it in him to be dismayed at how his frame inevitably reacted.

 _Overload recommended within the next joor,_ his processor piped up, helpfully supplying a possibility matrix next to said message.

Optimus had always known that his audials were sensitive. That the cabling around his neck similarly so. That the wires between leg and waist plating were not to be touched.

And then there were other things -- like the base of his smokestacks or the mesh surrounding his undercarriage -- that he had never even _considered_ as erogenous zones but which were being deftly coaxed into overstimulation by the warlord's electrified servos.

Of course Megatron would gloat over this repository of knowledge.

 _Look at how well I know your frame,_ the warlord's servos whispered. _See? Am I not a worthy master?_

A stranged cry of frustrated lust cut through the whirring of his own fans when Megatron turned his attention to Optimus' tires. He was made acutely aware of the single claw hooking around the spoke of one tire. There was a scratch -- and another moan -- before the tire was obliged to spin.

Another servos carressed the lower tire as claws ran along the grooves in the tread. Optimus' frame spasmed at the touch.

 _Overloaded needed,_ his HUD confirmed.

And then Megatron doubled over and ran his glossa against the bolt holes and Optimus heard himself beg.

"How sweet you sound, my consort," the warlord purred as his glossa thrust into one of eight boltholes. "And how sweet you taste."

"Please," Optimus heard himself say. His battlemask had since snapped back and he was frantically trying to disengage the inhibitor from his mainline. "Please, please, please -- "

"All in due time," Megatron answered, returning to the task at-hand.

The warlord would not be satisfied with the eight bolt holes on one tire, or even the sixteen on two. No instead he insisted on running his glossa in all _thirty-two_ of the damn things. Optimus' cooling fans were higher than they had ever gone at the end of it and his processor was diverting overload notification messages in order to run them. His frame was a mess and he couldn't feel a single strut or klik of plating. When Megatron at last heaved himself up to press their intakes together anew, the traitorous synapses clustered around his tires gave a pulse of alarm, missing the wet hot glossa that had been teasing them for a joor.

Optimus cried into the kiss. He would have bucked his hips if he had any energy to do so. Instead he settled for scrabbling weakly at Megatron's pauldrons.

"See how easy it is?" Megatron insisted, as his claws gently disengaged the inhibitor.

Optimus was speared anew in a single thrust, in a moan that trailed off into a whimper, and he gathered his energy to jerk his own hips up, determined to end it soon.

Charge rippled through his frame, but true overload eluded him, inhibitor or no.

When the knowledge caught up to him, his vocaliser crackled with another cry of frustration.

"I..." he stammered out, spitting static, "I can't... I _can't_...!"

His whole frame trembled with need and he curled his helm inwards, horrified at his own helplessness.

Even without the inhibitor... even with Megatron's spike...

"Calm," Megatron commanded, smothering frantic EM fields with his own. His servos ran up and down Optimus' sides while his hips gave the barest fraction of a roll. The movement was enough to make Optimus keen.

"Slowly, slowly," the warlord soothed, rubbing circles against Optimus' hit struts, mouthing at Optimus' audials. "You've been too long without," he murmured, nibbling at his consort's mainline.

Slowly but surely, the anxiety was eased out of Optimus' frame. He was still a trembling leaking mess, but his fans had returned to a more reasonable setting and his processor was functioning at 60% capacity.

It would have been a welcome reprieve, were it not for the warbuild pressing him to the berth, coaxing him with false promises of tenderness to overload.

"That's it," Megatron praised, pressing his intake right up against Optimus' audials as he rolled his hips once more. "Overload for me, Optimus."

Optimus did, weeping with unbidden relief when the charge coursed through him, ending as a pleased hum about his spark. Megatron's servos led him through the act, all delicate touches that Optimus would've never believed the other capable of.

He drifted into charge while still shuddering from the aftershocks and willed his tanks to keep from purging when familiar clawed servos reached up to better ensnare.

\---

Morning came, and with it, fresh new new wounds. The fact that he had recharged fitfully was of no comfort in the face of his own bleak future.

The slave coding was just the first step. Megatron intended to break him and then remould him into his own twisted design. And there was nothing Optimus could do to prevent it.

The sorrow that overtook him briefly flooded his EM fields. Enough to rouse his bondmate, in any case.

Megatron's optics snapped online at once and he pushed himself up so that his presence was looming instead of smothering.

" _What_ is the matter now?" he demanded.

Optimus made to roll away, but his shoulders and then his chin was seized.

"I thought a visit to Polyhex would please you," Megatron continued. His own EM field pulsed with irritation. "Is it not enough to know that Cybertron will prosper under my rule?"

No, Optimus wanted to say. No, it would never be enough. But he had already agreed to Megatron's terms and would have sacrificed himself twice over for similar results. So he ducked his head in silent affirmation and made to move away again.

"No," Megatron snarled, tightening his hold on the bottom piece of the battlemask. "You will not sweep this question to the side, Prime."

"I grow weary of your games, Megatron," he said at last. That, at least, was the truth.

The warlord's optic ridges furrowed.

"Your paint nanites tell a different story."

"That was before I realised you had planted a _tracker_ on me," Optimus snarled.

Megatron blinked and then laughed outright.

"Is that what this is about?"

Optimus said nothing, though he could not hide the loosening of his own field. It helped, he admitted, to say it aloud. Even though he knew Megatron wouldn't change.

"I did not," Megatron grinned, leaning in close. "As I said before, I have no need of it."

Optimus bristled. "Then the docks -- "

"Is it my fault you were foolish enough to flee before my very optics?" Megatron retorted. And then, when Optimus stared at him in disbelief, he continued with: "I saw you board the _Eon of Metal_. And as a state visit to Polyhex was long overdue..."

Optimus said nothing, feeling verymuch the fool. He would have to account for this in future attempts, though it was heartening to receive verbal confirmation that he wasn't being tracked.

"And with that," Megatron rolled off of berth in one smooth motion, forcing Optimus to follow with a servos wrapped tight around his wrist, "I believe a refueling will do us both good. The Electorate aims to show off its reconstruction efforts today."


	5. The Consort and the Underground

Optimus' victory was not nearly as sweet as expected though the concessions that came with it almost -- almost -- justified their means.

It had been less than a chord since their return from Polyhex. Though Optimus grudgingly conceded (to himself at least) that Megatron was indeed aiding the reconstruction of their planet, he still loathed the gauntlet that hung over his own helm as well as the ever-present _closeness_ of his bondmate.

They had interfaced each night cycle since, as was habit by now, but Optimus had yet to slide back his battlemask. As a result, though he'd been filled to the brim with transfluid, the overload inhibitor remained in its place, which explained the aggravated constricting of calipers between his legs.

Megatron must have known he was biding his time. He was, after all, openly subspacing cube after cube of energon while poring over intercontinental maps in the long hours the Slagmaker left him to his own devices. More than that however, his request for an update patch to his navigational unit had been approved, which meant he was now capable of tracking his relative geographic position.

It was conceit that led Megatron to permit such concessions, and like every good soldier, Optimus intended to use every opportunity he was afforded.

This time, he left in much the same way as he had the second time: through the gardens, over the fence, and down the ramparts in alt mode. It was easier to travel to the inner city after having gone before.

Primus blessed him then, in allowing him to find the tunnels the mechling had spoken of before midnight. Megatron had been overseeing negotiations between Tarn and Vos when he'd departed. He doubted said meeting had ended, which meant no one in the fortress knew he was gone.

As such, Optimus was already far and away beneath the earth when his bondmate discovered his absence.

\---

He had subspaced enough energon to last for two quartexes and after an initial calculation of distance intended divided by pace, was reassured with the knowledge that he would consume less than half that before reaching Kalis.

Radiant Kalis, the steadfast sister-city of Iacon.

His spark sang at the thought of the twin metropoli. Even though he had underscored time and again the need to distance himself from all others -- but especially Autobots -- he still couldn't stop the swell of anticipation at the prospect of being in relative proximity to them once more. How were they rebuilding? Was his team from Earth doing well? Who else had come back? These questions and more raced through his processor and though he longed to ask them directly, he knew just as well that in asking them, he would be opening himself up to similar lines of inquiry.

Clearly, even the sparklings of Kaon were aware of his role in Megatron's court. He was reluctant to uncover whether said fact was common knowledge in Autobot circles too.

Like E-228 had said, the tunnels wound this way and that, like empty veins beneath the surface of the planet. Sometimes they were wide enough for his alt mode to drive through. Yet other times they required him to squeeze by on servos and knees in root mode. It was only after he'd gone past the twelfth iteration of thin-thick-thin that he realised the reason for the wider passages: the space was leftover from mined ore. The idea of carrying metal out, especially piece by piece, through the tunnels rattled his processor to the core.

When had these tunnels been carved? Before the Golden Age? Or during?

Despite his initial wariness to the tunnels, he found his spark slowly but surely soothed as he made his way towards the continent of his emergence. After the second orn, the pitch darkness of the tunnels was nearly soothing.

On and on and on they went. Looping back at times, branching out every couple joors or so, but always continuing on. Though he hadn't confirmed it with his own pedes, he was certain that the 'entrance' so to speak in Kaon was but the first of many.

\---

At five orns in and feeling more at-ease than he had ever been since his inglorious return to Cybertron, Optimus came across a gaggle of drones.

Upon closer inspection, there were three of them, and the only reason he didn't run into (or over) them was because of the faint blue light that shone between them.

"An energon deposit?" he asked aloud, forgetting himself.

As one the drones whirled on him. Excited chirps and beeps followed, reminding Optimus of Bumblebee.

‹Who goes there?!›

‹Idiot, it's the Consort!›

‹The Consort?!›

‹What in the Pit is he doing here?!›

‹Didn't he ask a question?›

"At ease," Optimus said, keeping his tone level, though it came too late to stop the three of them from prostrating themselves. The one who had spoken first dared tilt his helm upwards when it became clear Optimus wasn't going to thrash them.

‹Sir...?› the drone ventured in a single beep.

"By the Allspark," Optimus whispered, reaching out to stroke the radiant blue ore. All this time, he had rationalised that they were getting their energon from offworld. That the mines of Cybertron had been as barren as when they had left.

‹Are you... going to take it?› another drone asked.

The sliver of fear in the other's EM field shook Optimus from his reverie. Only then did he realise how bad his presence looked.

He was quick to step back, holding both servos up.

"Nothing of the sort," he answered. "You may rise. Please." He paused, and added: "Even the Emperor does not expect such submission."

‹Why are you -- › the first piped up, only to be elbowed by the third.

‹Shut up already, Grus!›

A quick glance at the patched navigational unit showed that he had reached the outskirts of Proximax, the second largest city in Vos. Which explained why the frames of these drones differed from the ones Optimus had encountered on Earth.

Optimus gathered himself and curled up against the opposite wall.

"I should like to recharge for a bit," he said. He was, in fact, overdue for a recharge.

‹Here?!›

‹Now?!›

"Yes." And with that, he offlined his optics and let his recharging protocols take over, more or less lulled into the state by the glow of raw energon.

\---

Optimus dreamt that not quite night cycle of a tunnel fully illuminated by raw energon. Glistening uncut ores of white and blue, some of them polished enough to muster up a reflection.

He had been so concerned with himself and then his Autobots that he hadn't put any real thought to the affairs of the planet at large.

In this dream world at least, there was energon enough for all. For all the fearful drones and all the hungry mechlings. Here, the tunnels were bustling with life. He watched a gaggle of sparklings toddle along, with the one at the rear scooping ore shavings into his intake, and was struck by the warmness of the scene.

He awoke from recharge in the same place and position as he had offlined in.

The light from the exposed vein was even more brilliant than he remembered it. The drones must've cleared more in the time since.

A quick glance around confirmed that all three drones were recharging in their jet alt modes, stacked neatly one on top of the other. At the turn of his head, the headlights of the jet in the middle turned on.

‹...Sir?› the drone asked again.

"I take it there's a refinery at Proximax?" Optimus asked.

‹Yes, sir,› the drone beeped in affirmation.

The part of his processor that still treated all Decepticons as _the enemy_ noted that said refinery would be an excellent target. Optimus stilled his twitching servos; outside of his personal discomfort, Megatron -- and with him, the rest of the Decepticons -- had given him little reason to interrupt their reconstruction of the planet.

"There must be others like you," Optimus continued.

‹Sir...?›

"Mining underground, I mean."

‹Yes, sir.›

His conversation roused the other two drones from recharge and he watched, amused despite himself, as the three of them quickly shifted back to root mode. Had the Vehicons on-board the _Nemesis_ acted in a similar fashion? He had long assumed they would be treated as poorly as the mining bots had been treated before the war, but the lustre of their paint told a different story.

‹He's still here?› One of the other drones demanded.

‹You watch your glossa, Sev,› the third snapped.

Optimus knew he needed to keep moving. That he was less than halfway to his intended destination. Yet at the same time, it was fascinating watching the three of them work. He settled for returning to the side of the wall he had recharged against and told himself he'd leave as soon as he finished his energon ration.

Yet as soon as he retrieved said cube from subspace, three helms whirled to look at him.

He blinked, unfamiliar with drone behavior.

Yet their EM fields...

‹S-Sorry, sir,› the first drone stammered out. He turned back to the vein. And then, when his cohorts kept staring, he barked at them to keep working.

...they carried the same spike of hunger as the mechling.

Optimus cleared his intakes, forcing the drones to turn to him again.

"Would you like a cube?" he asked, pulling out three more.

He had more than enough rations he told himself. Plus, if he was to be treated as a visiting official -- even if he wasn't -- this was the closest he could get to a stately banquet.

‹Oh no, sir, that's not -- › the first drone beeped, but his fellow drones had already scampered forward and relieved Optimus of the three proffered cubes.

‹Sev! Grot!› the first chastised with two sharp clicks.

"It's alright," Optimus reassured him. "Energon is best shared, after all." Like with the mechling, the drones waited for him to take the first sip. Back in Kaon, he had thought it a matter of suspicion, but here in the tunnels beneath Proximax, he suspected it was more out of decorum.

The cube was, in any case, as sweet as he remembered it.

The second and third drones followed suit, chittering amidst themselves with delight.

‹So smooth!›

‹But piquant!›

‹Dig in Grus, this is the good stuff!›

Optimus chuckled and his laugh, it seemed, convinced the leader of the bunch to sip at his own cube.

‹Thank you,› the first drone -- Grus -- said, on behalf of the three of them.

"You're welcome." Optimus finished off his own cube and then removed three more from his subspace, setting them on the ground. "I can't stay, I'm afraid," he admitted, "But please help yourself to these when you get hungry."

With that, he shifted into alt mode, fully prepared to drive away.

Except then the leader beeped at him.

‹Sir...› he started.

Optimus turned his rearview mirrors towards him.

‹I just wanted to say... that is... we support you.›

In truck mode, Optimus' range of speech was similarly limited. He gave a beep of inquiry. ‹What do you mean?›

‹That is...› in his rearview mirrors, he saw the drone kick up some dirt. In the light of the energon vein, it looked almost purple. ‹We used to be slaves too.›

‹Worse off than slaves,› another drone corrected.

‹But now we're free. Because of the war,› the first continued. ‹So... please don't give up, sir.›

A warmth flooded Optimus' spark then. Were he in root mode, he would have rushed to embrace them. As it was, he gave a pleased rumble of his exhaust pipes.

‹Thank you,› he answered, a poor response to the comfort the other's words had brought. ‹Thank you,› he repeated. ‹And good-bye.›

And with that, he kicked his engine into high gear and blasted down the main tunnel.

As the darkness returned to embrace him, he was incapable of fighting off the staggering guilt. Back on Earth, he'd deactivated their kind by the dozen. How many Vehicons had died by his blade? By his cannon? By his fist?

He pushed said thoughts far and away, concentrating instead on making up for the lost time.

\---

He had spent a chord to the orn in the tunnels when Megatron broke protocol, sending a message through their private comm line -- the one that had been established before the outbreak of the war.

Optimus hesitated for a klik, but refused to be deterred by curiosity. Freedom was at-servos, he knew. He would not be distracted.

So he deleted the message without having read it and continued on his way.

He was woken from his recharge the following orn by a request for communications. Same comm line, same sender.

He ignored this too, with more relish than necessary.

 _Let him reach out,_ a wicked voice at his spark said. _For if he was capable of action, he would have acted by now._

Thus he denied three additional requests for communication, all scattered throughout the orn.

But the Slagmaker was nothing if not persistent and Optimus found himself constantly being shaken out of recharge by the soon-to-be-denied requests.

The requests continued for two and a half orns, punctuated by another message. They were denied and deleted accordingly.

And then -- silence. Radio silence.

A rational part of Optimus said that Megatron was not the type to give up. It was one of the reasons their friendship had been able to blossom at all, in the face of their staggering differences. But at the same time, Megatron must have been telling the truth about the lack of a tracking device, for this was the longest period of time -- by a long shot -- that he'd been away from the other. Since their bonding ceremony, in fact.

He was halfway to Kalis by now.

Faster, he urged his engines. Faster and faster still.

\---

Megatron's offensive came in the form of a forced visual link. As per their status as bondmates, both of them were technically allowed to force the other party to see through their optics.

As with before, said ability bypassed the protocols of their usual comm line. Thus, he was compelled to grind his engines to a halt (lest he wanted to crash carriage-first into the wall) as he was treated to the sight of... some room inside Darkmount. Not the throne room or the banquet hall or their berthroom. But it must have been Darkmount, for no other building in Kaon had such high ceilings.

Megatron swept his gaze along the length of the room before coming to rest on a medical berth.

Optimus' spark sank at the sight.

For lying there, with shuttered optics and free of restraints, was _Ratchet_.

He watched, helpless, as Megatron's claws ran along the medic's mainline.

And then the visual link was cut off, as abrupt as its initialisation.

Optimus shifted back to root mode, venting heavily.

As expected, another request for communications popped up within the klik. He grit his denta and hastily accepted.

"Where are you," the Slagmaker demanded.

"You are a Pit-forsaken _cheat_ ," Optimus snarled, thinking back to Smokescreen's own threat, "If you have hurt him -- "

"Needs must, Optimus," Megatron cut through. "Though it gives me no pleasure to resort to these means."

Optimus gave a derisive snort.

"Now," the warlord pressed. "I ask again. Where. Are. You."

Ratchet would hate him for this. But it mattered not; he could be free to rage all he wanted so long as his spark remained online.

"About two chords underground out from Kaon," Optimus answered. The glyphs were bitter against his glossa. "Under Vos, I think. Give me a joor and I'll make it to the surface."

"No need," Megatron's tone brooked no argument. "Send me your coordinates and stay put. I will come get you."

The thought of having to wait for his bondmate like a sparkling curdled his tanks. Optimus grit his denta again, drawing another sharp invent.

"Megatron -- " he said at last, for his pride would not let him hold his glossa.

"Yes?"

"I think I am starting to hate you."

That audial-grating dark chuckle ran through his helm. "Better late than never, my beloved consort." And with that, the line was cut and Optimus was made to obey the two explicit commands. Send his coordinates and stay put.

\---

The waiting -- and the anticipation that came with it -- was the _worst_.

His processor merrily ran through confrontation matrices while his much-neglected valve grew wet at their imminent reunion.

For the first time since his return to Cybertron, he felt the stirrings of spite in his spark. The emotion was so wholly alien, he didn't recognise it at first. But then -- clear as unrefined energon -- it coalesced into a single thought:

_I should have allowed the humans to sacrifice themselves._

That he was even capable of thinking such a thought brought him greater horror than the present state of his frame. He purged said memory from his banks, determined to never think it again. The humans had sacrificed -- in their own terms, though never in their own words -- hand over foot for their conflict. Millions had perished, caught between Cybertronian crossfire.

At spark, he knew he did not truly regret his decision. That if he had been sent back, he would have made the same sacrifice again and again.

This knowledge at least, brought him some solace, that his spark was not so far removed from what it can been (from what it _should_ be), that his EM field was almost at peace when the initial explosion took place.

A series of juddering shots caused the tunnel roof a quarter of a breem away to cave in.

His chronometer counted two and a half _joors_ since he had sent his bondmate the coordinates. Optimus quailed to think of the energon expenditure such a rapid journey must've required.

In any case, the familiar comm line was reactivated.

He drew another heavy ex-vent before approving the connection.

"Optimus," Megatron said. "Can you see the point of entry?"

"It would be difficult not to."

"Good."

The connection cut off again and he counted two thirds of a breem before a familiar pair of red optics peeked out from the muddled darkness.

" _Optimus_ ," Megatron greeted, tackling him to the ground. It was alarming, to hear his name spoken so. To feel the warlord's EM fields thrumming with jubilant relief.

"Tell me your fuel levels," he said at once. Another direct command.

"Seventy-three percent," Optimus was forced to reply.

"Hmm," instead of the expected rebuke, the other merely leaned in close, forcing Optimus to bear the full of his weight.

"Miss me?" Megatron had the nerve to ask, even as his servos tapped against the cover of Optimus' interface panel.

"As if," Optimus snarled. "And what did you do to Rachet?"

"Yet your valve tells a different story," Megatron mused. He ran his clawtips against the outer folds again, causing a most delicious series of shivers. The question of how Megatron was able to lay his servos in all the right places in the face of the darkness of the tunnel went unanswered as the other -- without any prompting, reached up and plucked the inhibitor up and away.

"Ratchet," Optimus pressed, remembering his priorities. "What have you done to him?"

"You were most agreeable upon seeing him so I did not need to resort to more drastic measures."

Optimus thrashed, furious that up and up _abduction_ could be called minor. It was no use of course; Megatron had a deadbot's grip on his legs.

"You cheat," he snarled, as the warlord moved down. "You Pit-forsaken _cheat_." He covered his own optics and heaved a self-hating sob. It was his own fault for believing after all. Even when vorns upon vorns had told him otherwise.

"Peace, Prime," Megatron continued, stroking the inside of Optimus' thighs with his usual care. "Restitution will be made, I assure you."

"There is _nothing_ \-- " Optimus snarled, only to be cut off by his own whimper-come-moan as Megatron drove his _glossa_ right between his folds.

The intensity of the initial overload was enough to cause his HUD to white out. But Megatron was not to be satisfied with that. No, his glossa remained where it was, lapping at Optimus' slick inner plating until Optimus was coaxed, to his growing horror, into a second overload.

His audials rang with his own cries, sharp against the whirr of cooling fans.

He overloaded a third time with the Slagmaker's glossa still wedged between his legs, and he found he could hardly feel his lower appendages. The third overload barely phased him, a brief clenching of calipers followed by a jerk of hips, but it was evidently enough for Megatron.

Optimus should've taken comfort in the darkness. Instead, his processor painted an all-too vivid image of Megatron lapping up all traces of charge before running his glossa in circles -- just as he had against Optimus' bolt holes -- on the outermost node.

He heard himself calling for Primus. He wasn't sure whether it was a plea for absolution or respite.

In any case, after the third overload, Megatron pulled himself up so that his intake -- the same intake that had been laving against Optimus' valve for ten whole breems -- could now kiss up and down Optimus' neck cables.

Damn the Slagmaker, Optimus thought, as the charge fed back into itself which meant he was trembling with need when Megatron released his own spike with a snik, rubbing its dense heat against Optimus' thigh for a klik.

"Just get it over with," Optimus snarled with a roll of his hips.

"As my consort commands," Megatron replied. His voice was thick with affection. He sank in as Optimus' tanks roiled and his spark cried out. Then he turned to the side and opened his battlemask, purging at last. There was only so much disappointment a bot could take.

Megatron, oddly enough, did not press his advantage. In his fear of additional intimacy, Optimus had refrained from pulling back his battlemask except under the most dire of circumstances. Yet the Slagmaker made no motion to kiss him or otherwise occupy his intakes.

Indeed, his thrusts slowed down before stilling altogether and he ran electrified servos up and down Optimus' sides.

"Peace," the warlord said again. "Peace, Prime." He nuzzled anew at Optimus' neck cables, leaning up to nibble on the left audial. Optimus flinched at the contact; processor whirling.

His own frantic EM fields were enveloped by Megatron's and between that and the other's re-electrified servos, he found his frame slowly but surely acquiescing. In time, his bondmate resumed his thrusting, spilling into him with a satisfied grunt that brought Optimus to a fourth overload.

Optimus was dimly aware of being cleaned up and carried out. Of clutching on to Megatron's alt mode as the two of them hurtled through the skies. Hadean was still coasting to its apex then and his own optics misted over at the sight of their star.

Had he really spent nearly two chords away, tunneling beneath the earth? Their time apart wasn't nearly long enough.

His fields were wrapped tight against his frame when they touched down, and he ignored the rumble of discontent that came from Megatron when the warlord's field gave an exploratory stretch.

He was cheat, Optimus' spark underscored. A Pit-forsaken cheat without a klik's worth of sportsmanship. And Optimus was a fool to have fallen for it.

\---

"Where is Ratchet?" Optimus demanded upon Megatron's return to their berthroom for that night cycle. He had bathed and fueled and languished, and his tanks had emptied themselves once more at the thought of his medic's fate.

"Peace," Megatron said for the third time.

"I did as you commanded!" Optimus snapped, still furious at himself, "Tell me his spark still beats."

"Of course it does," his bondmate snapped back. "Even if he had a hand in your escape -- "

"He did not!"

"Even if he _did_ ," Megatron snarled, "I would not have deactivated him." He heaved an ex-vent, snapping his claws Optimus' way. "For medics are in as short supply as ever," he added.

Optimus crossed his arms and said nothing, too angry to be capable of relief. He settled for deep and slow ex-vents, forcing calm into his spark.

"On the matter of restitution," Megatron continued.

"That wasn't it?" Optimus blurted out. 'It' being the excessive amount of overloads.

An optic ridge was raised anew before Megatron chuckled. "I hardly think such recompense would satisfy you, Prime," he drawled.

Optimus swallowed, not daring to speak.

"Kaon is the most populous city by far," Megatron continued. "And Knockout has spoken to me many times on the understaffing problem ats his clinic. Therefore, I've asked Soundwave to extend an invitation to your medic."

Optimus blinked, certain he had mishead.

"...Ratchet...?" he asked.

"Yes, that one," Megatron rolled his optics. "He's been given his own clinic on the other side of Darkmount. Soundwave will see to it that the proper facilities are installed."

His spark could have burst from his chassis then. Yet Optimus reigned it in.

"Did Ratchet consent to this transfer?" he pressed.

Megatron gave him an odd look then.

Can you not be happy?, it said. Can you not share in my relief?

Optimus' field said it all.

The warlord ex-vented before shrugging a great pauldron.

"Ask him yourself," he said. Then his gaze grew sharp. "Later, that is. Come, it has been too long." He moved to the berth, motioning for Optimus to follow.

It hadn't nearly been long enough, but he still went. The other's concession was still resting at the centre of his processor. A part of him couldn't believe it. Ratchet, brought over from Iacon? Ratchet, given a clinic of his own to commandeer in _Darkmount_?

Unlike the previous night cycles, Megatron refrained from interface, though Optimus swore the other's grip tightened to make up for it. And so he forced himself to drift into recharge.


	6. The Consort and the Hive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Yes! Christmas break! Time to write!  
> This Fic: If you thought I exist only to make your favourite characters suffer, you've got another thought coming.
> 
> I tried my best to keep the numbers consistent (assuming there are 100 quartexes in a vorn), but would be grateful if you could double-check for me! I imagine it will all get further muddled in the later chapters...

Normally Megatron would be off of Optimus' pauldron after their morning frag. A fledgling Empire did not run itself, after all, and Optimus grudgingly conceded the other had done an impressive amount of work with regards to the reconstruction efforts.

This orn, unfortunately, found the Slagmaker loitering on the berth -- with his spike still buried deep within Optimus' valve, of course. Beneath him, Optimus shifted in clear discomfort and the warlord reached out to brush his claws against first the inhibitor and then the battlemask.

"The servants inform me you've ceased subspacing rations," Megatron said.

Optimus gave a brusque shrug, interpreting the statement as a gloat.

"Is this another side effect of having taken your lapdog under my wing?" Megatron continued. He tilted his wrist a klik so that the claw could scrape -- light but audible -- against the mask.

Optimus' optics flickered to fix him with an irritated look. He held his glossa though, still filled with trepidation on behalf of Ratchet. To have the medic working in the fortress was both the dearest balm and the deepest fear. If anything were to happen to him, so far behind enemy lines...

"Well?" Megatron pressed, nuzzling at Optimus' neck cables.

With effort, Optimus kept from shuddering, though he turned his head to face the far wall.

"You presume, Megatron," he said at last, when a breem passed and the other made no move to extract himself.

"Oh?" Megatron's vocaliser dropped a telling pitch; Optimus' traitorous valve fluttered at the sound.

"It has nothing to do with Ratchet," Optimus snapped, frustrated that the other would not leave him the Pit alone. "And everything to do with you being a cheating Pit-spawned glitch."

"Are you dissatisfied with my means of restitution?" Megatron countered. "Should I exchange it for something else?"

Optimus pushed at his chest then; a compromise of the punch he so dearly wished to throw.

"Just leave already, will you?" he spat. _You've taken your dues, now leave me mine,_ he dared not say.

"Such a pity," Megatron mused, ignoring -- as he always did -- the parts of their conversation which he disliked. "It was a most pleasant distraction."

"I am no cyberfox," Optimus snarled.

"Of course not," Megatron's smile was all teeth. "You are my consort."

His words only served to further incense. Optimus found himself baring his own teeth behind his mask, growling back: "If a chase is all you want, I'm sure your own soldiers will be happy to oblige."

"You fail to see the point," Megatron corrected. "It is not nearly so amusing to give pursuit to them. And besides, all my men have more pressing matters to attend to." The _unlike you_ did not need to be said.

Optimus' processor -- and spark, and valve -- _hurt_. He tried to make sense of a senseless situation.

"You _want_ me to try to escape," he said.

"Try being the operative word."

"I refuse. I grow weary of your twisted games."

Megatron gave a soft ex-vent, biting down gently on Optimus' mainline. "I'm sure I can give you sufficient due to reconsider."

"A legitimate chance at freedom," Optimus immediately countered.

"Never," Megatron immediately answered.

"Then I refuse." For what was the point of playing a game he had no chance of winning?

Megatron pushed himself up then, and for a moment Optimus' spark leapt at the other's imminent departure. Except he used the motion to hover over him, taking Optimus' chin and forcing optical contact. It was always disarming, looking in the other's optics, but Optimus refused to be cowed. He had every right -- every right -- he reassured himself, to be furious.

Then his bondmate leaned in again, so that his intake was pressed against Optimus' battlemask. The slip of metal suddenly felt far too thin and Optimus swore he could feel the warmth of the other's ex-vents then.

"If you think I would let you go," Megatron said with glittering red optics, "Then you have forgotten far more than I first reckoned, Optimus."

The fervency of his tone was at odds with the sincerity of his field. Optimus could not fully suppress the shudder that said contrast elicited. His processor spun, trying to remember... trying to remember something which likely had never been.

After another klik, he forcibly jerked his chin out of Megatron's hold and resumed staring at the far wall. His valve gave an unhappy clench at the motion, still desiring release.

"Has your dear medic briefed you on the situation in Iacon?" Megatron asked, retracting his servos to prop himself up with both arms.

"In a sense."

"Then you'll know that your precious Autobots are already pushing the limits of our treaty."

Optimus exploded then.

"The terms of that treaty would have all of Iacon living pauldron to pauldron!"

"Just as the rest of Cybertron had lived for, oh, the whole of time?" Megatron countered.

"We fought against excess and injustice, just as you did! The only difference is -- "

"The only difference is _your_ side lost," Megatron cut through.

Optimus heaved a long ex-vent, clenching his servos before offlining his optics.

"Optimus," Megatron snarled, seizing his chin again.

Optimus' optics remained offline.

"Optimus, look at me," the other commanded.

He was able to resist for half a klik before the damn coding forced his optics back online. The one silver lining was that Megatron's EM field was just as jagged as his own, which meant Optimus had somehow gotten under his bondmate's plating.

" _What_."

"Did you, while acting as the leader of the Autobots, agree to the current terms of the treaty? A yes or no will suffice."

In that moment, Optimus wanted nothing more than to rip the other's spark out. He lost control of his own field in that milliklik and was certain their proximity meant that murderous jump had been felt. Yet Megatron only maintained optical contact, still waiting for his reply.

"...Yes," he said at last.

"There," Megatron purred, "Spoken from the Prime's own intakes." He rolled his hips, as if Optimus was in any danger of forgetting their intimate state, before adding: "But let it never be said that I denied my consort anything. I am, in my boundless magnamity, open to negotiations."

" _That_ is the prize you would offer?" Optimus demanded, bristling. " _Negotiations_?"

"We may negotiate now, if you wish," Megatron answered, releasing his chin.

Even though the thought of playing as cyberfox for the warlord's amusement made Optimus' tanks roil, he had, even before taking on the Matrix, sworn he would endure any hardship, bear through any humiliation, for the benefit of his bots. The worst part however was Megatron's knowledge of this oath.

The city of Iacon was the sole location on the restored Cybertron where the Autobots were permitted to exercise dominion. Yet with her long-dried Energon mines, Iacon had no chance of supporting a population of more than a thousand bots. In order to achieve anything near self-sufficiency, the Autobots would need to expand into Ibex and likely Hyberious too.

"A square vorn," Optimus said.

"Yes, that is roughly what their Council demanded," Megatron nodded. "I propose the following... emendation... to our earlier treaty: for each successful orn of your escape, I will cede a square quartex of land to your precious Autobots."

"Will this ceded land be next to Iacon?" Optimus pressed.

"Of course." Megatron grinned. "Despite the stories, I am not such a monster, eh?" He leaned down to nuzzle at Optimus' neck cables. And then, when Optimus was slow to respond: "What say you, consort mine?"

One hundred orns. He needed to keep away for the span of one hundred orns in order to get the Autobots all the land they needed.

Optimus bowed his head, ignoring how the motion let his battlemask touch Megatron's helm.

"I accept," he said. He had no choice, really, and they both knew it.

"Capital," Megatron purred.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he eased his spike out, leaving Optimus' valve trembling with need and feeling so disgustingly empty. Optimus booted the subsequent warning messages off of his HUD.

Instead of immediately cleaning the transfluid and lubricant from Optimus' valve, Megatron instead opted to extract a now-familiar interface toy from his subspace. At the sight of it, Optimus gave a low groan, offlining his optics and turning away. He knew better than to close his legs though and was unable to keep his hips from jerking upwards when Megatron slipped the innocuous sphere between his swollen folds.

"There," the warlord purred after cleaning Optimus' valve and motioning for the modesty panel to slide back into place. "I trust you are now sufficiently... incentivised."

"You are sick, Megatron," Optimus gasped. "Rotten at spark."

He was answered by another dark chuckle and a fond cupping and then squeezing of his now-covered interface array.

"That's high praise coming from you, Prime."

By the grace of Primus, Megatron did not linger afterwards, rolling off the berth and sauntering out the room within the breem. Optimus was left trembling with the need for overload and with that wretched thing back between his legs. But he had also been given a higher purpose, a task closer to his original calling, and he would not shirk from it.

\---

Ratchet's first reaction was: "Has your processor completed glitched out?!"

His second reaction, after Optimus explained the situation, was: "You're an absolute idiot but I'll be damned if I'm not following along."

His third reaction, after Optimus told him there was zero chance of that happening -- between Megatron's obsessive nature and the open animosity from the other Decepticons in the fortress, Optimus feared the worse if the medic was caught aiding and abetting -- was a long, flat look that made Optimus squirm, before he heaved a particularly loud ex-vent.

"I know how you are when you get _that_ look," the medic grumped. "You should run along then -- before my processor comes up with a realistic method of stopping you."

Optimus reset his optics, certain the Ratchet before him was a hologram. He hadn't expected the conversation to go so... smoothly.

"...Just like that?" he asked.

"Yes, just like that. And before you start asking who I am and what I've done with Ratchet, let me remind you, I was there when the Council nominated you for Prime." _I know what you've sacrificed,_ his optics said.

Optimus' own optics softened.

"Thank you, old friend," he said. "And if you need anything while I'm gone -- "

"Ep ep ep!" the medic interrupted. "Don't tell me anything you don't want _them_ to find out. Remember: all our secrets are one cortical psychic patch away from being uncovered."

Optimus fell silent at that.

Ratchet was right, of course. All the walls had audials here. He likely wouldn't even be able to open a comm to the other once he was outside the fortress' perimeter.

A part of him, a selfish, childish part of him, still wanted to take the medic, Megatron's wrath be damned. But Ratchet... Ratchet had a chance of integrating. He had, after all, worked at a clinic in Slaughter City back before the war. Optimus owed it to him to believe he'd make do without.

So he slid his battlemask back to give the other a wane smile.

Ratchet waved him off, grumbling still.

\---

His sixth attempt was a failure from the start.

Optimus only realised he hadn't bothered topping up his energon ration _after_ he had cleared the walls of the fortress. The fortress' security being what it was, it was still easier breaking out of Darkmount than breaking in, though the former still no easy feat -- especially when one's bondmate insisted on jamming things in and up to stagger the odds.

The expander wasn't anywhere near its previous size, but its persistent presence was a reminder of the ache to come. Optimus was sorely aware of how he hadn't even made it to a single chord with the thing inside him and was certain Megatron had saddled him with it to force his premature return.

 _Then what was the point of goading me out in the first place?,_ he griped, trying to steer his processor away from interface.

One hundred orns, he reminded himself. One hundred orns and then Iacon -- and the Autobots in her -- would be in a much better state.

He could do it. No, he _had_ to do it.

And if, at some point, Iacon grew ascendent once more...

Optimus pushed those thoughts from his processor as well. Fantasy scenarios were of little use now. Thus he grit his denta and made the shift into alt mode before careening down the series of cliffs that separated Kolkular from Kaon proper.

His initial plan had been to sneak back into the tunnels and try to make his way to Slaughter City. Ratchet had hinted at rumours of unrest on said continent and Optimus was not above leveraging said unrest (if it existed) for his own benefit.

The problem was that the act of shifting into alt mode -- which, in retrospect, he had never done before in such a state -- forced the expander deeper into his valve. Which wouldn't have been an issue, save for the understandably rough nature of the roads in the tunnels. The rocks and boulders which had been sparkling work to roll over back when he'd set his sights on Kalis were now jostling the toy around.

He couldn't even last a joor in his alt mode. Not like this.

Optimus shifted back to root mode with a gasp, practically keeling over from how deeply the second shift had lodged the expander in him. What had been a minor irritant was now impossible to ignore. And he had no means of removing it, courtesy of the _other_ rules of their arrangement.

 _This orn just gets better and better,_ he thought, clearing his HUD of the persistent overload-related reminders and forcing himself back upright.

It took four times as long to cover the same distance in root mode, courtesy of his staggered steps. By the time he crawled out of the tunnels -- still in Kolkular, still on Kaon -- Hadean had already begun its descent.

One hundred orns, Optimus told himself, even as his spark lashed out at the futility of it all. Nevermind a quartex; he would be lucky if he could even make it to a chord in his present state!

A glance between this legs brought up a second swell of dismay. Between switching forms and walking in root mode for four joors, his thighs were now coated in the ashen residue of the tunnels, stuck to his plating by dint of his own lubricant.

He was amazed then, when his pedes managed to take him to the industrial city of Helex. Like the city of Kaon, Helex was still in the process of rebuilding. His processor helpfully reminded him that eighty percent of the factories had been bombed during the war. The reasoning was sound, as any of them could have been converted to churn out munitions for the Decepticon cause, but the memory of committing to the attack still unsettled his spark.

Not for the first time, he looked inwards, addressing the Matrix: _Did you plan for this? Am I being punished? What more do you want from me?_

Like with the previous times, the sacred object gave a warm pulse. Just that, and nothing more. It -- if it was truly sentient -- had likely _heard_ him. It just didn't think his query worthy of a response.

At this point, Hadean had completed its journey of the orn. Optimus was resolved to find another patch of rubble to spend the night cycle in and recalibrate his action matrices in the morning when he heard movement to his left. The scuttling of claws.

Optimus dropped to a crouch (ignoring the tremor said movement caused) and quickly cycled his right arm into a sword. He had just transformed said limb when he was swinging it left and up, where it grated against another -- noticeably more bionic -- blade.

He blinked and found himself looking into the single slanted optic of an Insecticon.

"Pri-i-ime?" the Insecticon chittered, drawing its blade back. "Optimus Pri-i-ime?"

\---

As it turned out, the Insecticons were out on patrol. At some point in the reconstruction process, Megatron had gifted them with the industrial city and they had carved out an impressive hive complex within the quartex.

Optimus gleaned said information in bits and pieces. The scout who had found him, who went by the designation of Kickback, brought him to the repurposed factory the rest of the swarm called home.

"Here," Kickback said, after the loudest of the surprised chittering had died down. He pointed at a part of an assembly line. "Optime Pri-i-ime can recharge here."

It was, Optimus admitted, roughly the same height as a berth.

"Thank you," he said, deleting another torrent of warning messages from his monitor as he clambered on.

Kickback watched as Optimus retrieved an energon cube from subspace. He was about to drink, when he realised his manners and subspaced another, offering it to his... host. While there wasn't any lost love between them, at the same time, the outright animosity seemed to have left. Whatever the Insecticon's designs, his field didn't seem to have any killing intent.

Said Insecticon studied the cube for a long while. Kliks dragged by before he swung his single optic up to look at Optimus.

"For me-e-e?" Kickback asked, gesturing to himself.

"If you would like it," Optimus answered, suddenly uncertain if Insecticons ate the same grade of energon.

Kickback took the proffered cube with both of his upper claws and, as with the mining drones and the mechling, waited for Optimus to take the first sip.

Optimus was amused despite himself to hear the Insecticon's surprised churr.

"Smoo-oo-oo-ooth," Kickback hissed, shifting his wings.

At his declaration, a gaggle of smaller -- younger, presumably -- Insecticons scuttled over, clawing and biting at Kickback's legs. Optimus watched, further amused, as his host lowered himself to his lower four limbs so that he could share the gifted cube with the others.

"Goo-oo-ood," one of the smaller ones exclaimed.

"Very goo-oo-ood," another trilled.

The scene was a familiar one -- from both memory and fantasy. Of course, the children in those had been Autobots and he'd been walking through the streets of Iacon, but the underlying dream was still the same. Despite himself, Optimus found he was heartened by the tender display before him. For wasn't this what they'd all been fighting for?

"Tired?" Kickback asked, after he'd waved the hatchlings away.

"Somewhat," Optimus admitted, quickly draining the rest of his own cube.

Kickback nodded and went to a nearby control panel. With a couple taps from his upper limbs, the ceiling floodlights were significantly reduced.

Optimus startled. He didn't know much about Insecticons, but he knew they were nocturnal. "There's no need," he protested. "I'm perfectly capable of recharging under light." There must have been two hundred Insecticons who would have their waking cycles interrupted.

Kickback's optic blinked at him.

"Pri-i-ime," the Insecticon repeated, as if Optimus were a sparkling. "Guest."

With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Optimus on the makeshift berth.

The fatigue caught up to him all at once. Between his own anger over Megatron's twisted games and the aborted journey to Slaughter City, his processor actually craved recharge more than overload in that instant. So he settled himself down against the berth, thinking back to the worst bits of the war when he'd had to recharge on his pedes. As his optics slipped offline, he found himself lulled to sleep by the sounds of the rest of the hive coming to life about him.

\---

Despite the nocturnal nature of the Insecticons, there were always a couple dozen on patrol at every joor. At the end of the second orn away from the fortress, at the time when the rest of the hive was just waking, one of the carriers thrust a newly-sparked hatchling into Optimus' servos.

Optimus watched, increasingly bemused, until the Insecticon made the sign of Primus' benediction.

"Of course," he said, after the milliklik it took for him to get his bearings. He slid his battlemask back and pressed his intakes to the hatchling's helm before repeating the same sign right above said newspark's optic.

The newspark gave a contented churr. Optimus carefully handed it back to the carrier... only to discover a veritable queue had formed in the process.

He blessed twelve more hatchlings -- some of them clearly farther along their development cycles than others -- before Razorhorn, one of Kickback's lieutenants, intervened, herding the others away despite Optimus' protests and urging Optimus to rest.

It was difficult to recharge that night cycle, though the act of making the benediction of Primus had soothed his spark. The problem, as always, could be traced back to his bondmate. Or rather, the wretched thing he had saddled Optimus with. As his valve was in no danger of forgetting, his shifting in the first orn had forced the expander further along inside him which meant that the meagre amount of expansion it had accomplished was nonetheless unbearable.

Optimus ended up tossing and turning for the duration of the second night cycle.

\---

The events of the third orn passed by in a blur. As with his ill-fated third escape attempt, his HUD had since been flooded with messages demanding that he overload _now_.

Optimus felt verymuch a dead mech walking that orn.

He blinked, and suddenly found himself at the head of the same queue. Except the hatchling in his servos was different, as was its carrier.

He blinked again and found himself being herded back to the makeshift berth by a trio of guards. In his delirium, he almost missed Kickback's presence.

"Optimus Pri-i-ime," the de-facto leader of the Insecticon's said. _Yes, that is my designation,_ Optimus wanted to answer, but even that was too much. He had no chance of properly recharging, not when his own charge had grown so acute, but he still needed ninety-seven more orns and...

Kickback's field brushed against his own. Optimus was surprised and then confused to find it thick with apology. Did the Insecticon think it resposible for his current state? Optimus tried to speak, to say something suitably reassuring, but could only manage a burst of static.

 _Overload needed,_ his HUD prompted.

And so his third night cycle away was passed in an even more miserable fashion than the second.

\---

He would discover the reason behind Kickback's apologetic field in the early joors of the following orn.

Optimus hadn't gotten a klik of recharge that night cycle either, though he had turned his optics off to feed the illusion. His own audials twitched when, with two joors still left 'till dawn, a hushed silence suddenly filled the hive.

At this time in the previous night cycles, the Insecticons had still been busy with their orn to orn tasks. Optimus onlined his own optics and was treated to the sight of an empty hive.

A quick infrared scan showed that the Insecticons were still present, merely holed up in their individual nests. His first instinct was some sort of ceremony... and then he heard the familiar roar of a jet engine.

Despite his own fatigue and charge, Optimus managed to leap from the assembly table to the rear exit in the span of kliks. Unfortunately, Megatron was waiting for him there, wearing his champion's grin.

"Optimus," the warlord drawled, "What a pleasant surprise."

Optimus took a step back but did not get far. Megatron lashed out, wrapping an arm about his waist and pulling him close.

"I trust your fuel levels are sufficient?" the other asked, even as his claws danced along Optimus' still-sticky inner thigh.

"Yes," Optimus admitted with a glower. Megatron chuckled before dragging him outside, into the cool night air. Unlike other planets, Cybertron did not have a persistent tilt to its axis -- though Primus did sometimes shift a degree or two. As such, the concept was seasons was an alien one and the night cycle was as cold as ever.

"Missed me?" Megatron asked again, pushing Optimus up against the wall. The exit door slid shut with a click that rang of finality.

"No."

Another chuckle. "Liar." Optimus' interface panel obediently slipped back, granting the warlord access to his valve.

And then Megatron's field's were abuzz with incredulity.

"Did you have someone take it out?" he asked, after an initial brush of clawtips failed to make contact with the expander.

" _No_." Primus, how Optimus hated this. His only comfort was the relative privacy their surroundings afforded him. It still did nothing for the slew of _overload needed_ messages though.

"Then..." the warlord paused, cautiously reaching a little deeper.

Optimus bit back a cry of pain, though the exhaustion made his own field slip.

"Primus," Megatron swore. His claw brushed against the toy a second time. "How long has that been in there?"

" _Since you put it in_ ," was Optimus' icy reply.

"Nonsense," Megatron insisted. "I would never wedge it so far back. It might be pressed against your gestational chamber at this rate."

Optimus shifted on his pedes. He feared the flush on his face plating was visible, even behind the battlemask and in the dark. In any case, he knew Megatron was equipped with even more precise infrared sensors.

"Would an overload help?" the other mused aloud.

" _No._ "

Megatron gave another hum at that, though his field still rippled with displeasure. He reached out and unhooked the inhibitor before making the shift into alt mode.

Optimus moved to cling to him without prompting.

"No, not there," Megatron barked.

"...What?"

"Come sit at the front," his bondmate ordered.

All the other times he'd been made to cling to Megatron's jet mode had consisted of him lying prone with his chassis pressed against the other's signature fusion cannon. It was an efficient and relatively comfortable method of travel, humiliating implications notwithstanding.

Now, it appeared Megatron wanted him elsewhere.

As he had been given a direct order, his frame was forced to obey. He clambered off of the hovering jet and moved to its front.

"No," Megatron snapped, when Optimus tried to arrange himself in the same exact position from the other end.

"What do you want then?" Optimus snapped.

"Seat yourself _here_ ," Megatron commanded, gesturing with the only bit of him that had any range of motion in this mode. The bit being his helm.

Optimus blanched.

"You can't be serious," he said, scrambling for a reasonable excuse why not. "How will you even see?"

"I have the same navigational unit as you. Now get on."

Optimus was able to resist for all of a klik before his pedes took him over to the relative centre of the jet.

This... was awkward. There were no two ways about it. His valve -- which was still entirely exposed and dripping lubricant -- nearly twisted into itself when he leaned to the side, thus straddling the centre of the jet with his thighs.

"Hold on tight," Megatron commanded, field now humming with renewed good cheer. "And feel free to scream."

"As if," Optimus grumbled, though his servos were already holding on to the other's wings.

They lifted off and Optimus realised it was his first time flying which facing the other direction. And without Hadean to light the sky to boot. He wasn't given any time to dwell on this however, for as soon as Megatron broke through the cloud cover, he tilted his helm up -- his helm, which was now positioned directly underneath Optimus' dripping valve -- and licked a single hot stripe against Optimus' swollen wet folds.

Optimus keened, letting out an entirely unbecoming sound as he ground his hips towards the contact.

"That's it," Megatron praised, _from between his legs_ , as his glossa darted out for a less exploratory lick. "Scream for me, Optimus."

Optimus was not conscious enough to register whether he had followed through with the request-come-command and he swore he would never -- ever -- check his own logs for confirmation.

In any case, he was brought to overload from his bondmate's glossa a second -- or perhaps technically fourth -- time.

The overload swept the better half of his processor clear and suddenly, even remaining upright felt like too much effort. Optimus pitched forward, a quivering shuddering wreck of a bot, and tried to ignore the pleasant tingles that followed when Megatron did not fully disengage, insteading continuing his sampling, albeit at a slower pace.

Hadean was beginning to peek over the horizon when they returned to Darkmount. Despite everything, Optimus had managed to drift in and out of recharge after his own overload.

"We've returned," Megatron intoned, pitching slightly to the left so Optimus could disembark.

As soon as his pedes made contact with the balcony that doubled as a landing pad, Megatron shifted back to root mode, and a steadying servos made its way to the small of Optimus' back soon after.

"Ninety-seven more to go," Megatron noted, lightly shoving him towards the berth.

Optimus went, too tired to resist.

When he woke, much later on in the same orn, he discovered Megatron had somehow extracted the expander. And cleaned his valve and thighs and closed his panel and reattached the inhibitor while he was at it. The fact that his own frame could betray him to such an extent was galling, but Optimus concentrated on the positives, small though they were.

The toy was out of him and the current stakes remained.

He had his duty to the other Autobots. And he swore the same oath anew, that he would get them the square vorn they needed, regardless of how much it might cost him.


	7. The Consort and the Colosseum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update within a week? Truly a miracle!  
> Thank you so much for your reviews! I'm sorry for the content/themes of this story, but so happy other people can enjoy it nonetheless. :)

Outside of the frequent interfacing sessions -- which Optimus would have considered excessive even within the limits of a true bond -- the thing Optimus hated most was the veneer of choice which Megatron insisted keeping up with.

Take the present morn. His conjux was still buried to the hilt in him, though he had overloaded a breem prior, and his electrified servos were coaxing Optimus' already-charged frame to another untenable overload.

Optimus clenched up and thrust out; a useless gesture in the face of the damn inhibitor but it wasn't as if his frame cared.

And then Megatron reached up to tap on his ever-present battlemask.

"Come now Optimus," the other _chided_. Optimus' servos dug further into the sheets at the tone. "You know you're the only one suffering from this show of abstinence." He leaned down and began to lap at the stubborn piece of metal, as if it might be coaxed into compliance like the valve clenched about his spike. Thankfully, Optimus was in significantly more control of his battlemask and the guard remained in place.

It seemed they would have some variation of this discussion every time Megatron overloaded in him. Optimus took cold comfort in the knowledge that he had denied the other more often than not, even when faced with the needs of his incessant frame.

Thus he said nothing, turning his helm to the side. Eventually, like with the other orns, Megatron would relent. He'd give a couple parting words before pulling out and cleaning them both off and then leave Optimus free to his own thoughts for the rest of the orn.

Another breem passed. Megatron pulled his intakes away, though he made no further motion to fully disengage.

"You are such a stubborn heap of scrap," the warlord bemoaned, though his field still radiated post-overload bliss. "Is it really so difficult to believe I want both our frames to enjoy our union?" he asked.

 _The terms of our union would say otherwise,_ Optimus was tempted to snap back. But he held his glossa, certain the other would eventually lose interest and leave him be.

Except then Megatron's optics took on a determined slant and his field... actually ratcheted up a notch in terms of satisfaction. Optimus stiffened beneath him, sensing a change of pace.

He wasn't wrong.

"A trade then," Megatron pressed, digging his fingers into the space between Optimus' hip plates. Another spasm was coaxed from Optimus' frame before he reached up to tap at the battlemask anew. "Grant me this and I will add the previous orns to your tally."

 _That_ got Optimus' attention.

He stared up at the other in disbelief as Megatron rolled his hips again, eliciting another clench of his valve.

"That would be... twenty-six orns," Optimus replied, interrupting himself halfway as Megatron tweaked the edge of one of his windshields.

"Yes."

And there it was, the choice which was no choice at all. In that moment, Optimus was terrified that if Megatron had asked him to bare his spark in return for the whole square vorn, he would have agreed. For his duty as Prime continued to outshine all other priorities.

After a klik, his battlemask wordlessly slid back.

"There," Megatron purred, leaning in to lick a wet stripe up Optimus' cheek. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

And then his intakes were upon Optimus and even though he ordinarily only overloaded once in their morning session, Optimus could feel the spike buried between his legs repressurising. Unlike the previous times, Megatron was decidedly more restrained, modulating the pace of his thrusting before running his glossa against the bottom of Optimus' intake. The swipe of glossa was soon replaced by gentle sucking and Optimus found himself pressing up into the kiss.

Megatron's engines gave a pleased rumble, though the noise was all but drowned out with the renewed thrum of twin cooling fans.

And then, when Optimus at last opened his intake, allowing his bondmate to twine their glossa, Megatron reached down with another servos, running his -- still electrified -- clawtips against the exterior node of Optimus' valve.

The additional stimulation sent Optimus keening into the kiss. And only then was the inhibitor disengaged.

In the throes of the most intimate overload yet, his frame moved of its own accord. Optimus was awash with lines of delighted code, unable to stop the bliss that flooded his normally reticent EM fields, and similarly incapable of stopping his limbs from wrapping about Megatron.

And then the worst case scenario happened. As Megatron was riding out the aftershocks of his second overload, a message popped up on Optimus' HUD. Between the momentary loss of control over his own frame and the initial burst of transfluid that had been emptied in him, his gestational chamber was now on the cusp of being kindled.

Optimus fought to keep the panic from his own field, leaning further into the kiss and concentrating on the bliss of his own overload. If Megatron knew that he was one overload away from being sparked...

Primus threw him a strut then, for the warlord only nipped at Optimus intakes before pulling out. Optimus tuned out whatever Megatron said next, calculating how many more orns he needed (seventy-one) and how long it would take for the pre-kindling command to be overridden (five orns). Unfortunately, this was another aspect of his frame that he had limited control over. There was no way he could terminate the kindling code from his own processor and he dared not risk inflicting Megatron's wrath upon Ratchet.

In any case, both their interface ports were meticulously cleaned before Megatron cycled his own spike away. The kliks dragged by as Optimus tried to keep his frantic impatience from showing. Finally, the warlord reached out and ran his thumb in that now-familiar three circles about Optimus' inner thigh, thus permitting Optimus to cover himself.

And then Optimus was left alone in their berthroom. Free of toys or other unwanted inclusions -- though Megatron had made sure to clip the inhibitor back in place. But Optimus' frame had been thoroughly sated with its most recent overload and he was absolutely confident -- assuming he made it to Slaughter City -- that he could wait out the necessary five orns for the termination of the kindling code.

\---

Knowing full well what thin plating he was treading on, Optimus made his escape within the joor. To his shame, the first concern on his processor was not how to maximise his time away so as to better aid his Autobots, but rather, how to guarantee an interface-free period of five orns so that the kindling would not take.

It didn't really matter, he told himself, for the end results were roughly the same.

So with only enough energon to last two chords on his own, he raced back to the set of tunnels he had attempted to traverse the last time.

To his consternation, he discovered that the previous entrance had been wholly filled up. Frustrated, he shifted back to root mode and tried to dig his way to the opening, wasting four joors and barely making a dent in the rubble heap. Hadean was nearing the top of the sky at that point, which meant Optimus had little over twelve joors before Megatron discovered his absence.

Thus he shifted back to his alt mode and switched gears. He had gone some length down this tunnel and the route was still fresh in his navigational unit.

The sabotage, if it could be called that, expanded to the three nearest entrances, but was not _so_ thorough as to include the fourth. Which begged the question, if someone was going around removing access to the tunnels, why would they stop at the first three?

Needless to say, Optimus' sensors tingled, sensing the springing of a trap.

Seeing as there were still four and a half joors worth of light in the orn, he spurred his engine forward. The fifth entrance should have only been a joor away and if that were open too, he would take it. Otherwise he would have to double back and expect the worse.

He was lucky then, in that the fifth entrance was similarly untouched. And so he returned to the tunnels and drove off in the direction of the Mithril Sea.

\---

After two orns underground, Optimus arrived at last at the entrance to Slaughter City. He was surprised to discover recent construction around the tunnels there. It was not traces of mining, scattered tools and the scent of harvested energon, but rather, proper construction work. Earthmovers, terraformers, and the like.

He shifted back to root mode and cautiously crept forward. The entrance to Slaughter City looked innocuous enough, a five by six set of steel girders that widened the tunnels so as to allow for two lanes of traffic.

A joor of observation revealed that traffic was intermittent at best. There didn't seem to be a guard at this end of the entrance, though Optimus couldn't see through to the other side. But the other mechs in vehicle mode simply went in and out without any audible means of confirmation.

Technically, the safest bet was to pass the five orns in his present location. He certainly had the energon supply for it. But it was also the most selfish course of action -- especially if the rumours of Slaughter City's discontent were to be believed.

Perhaps the rumours had merit. Perhaps -- though this was admittedly a long shot -- there might be some sympathisers to the Autobot cause within.

With such hopes resting on his processor, Optimus shifted as quietly as possible into his own vehicle mode and set himself on the 'entry' lane when a breem passed without any other traffic.

The problem was, as soon as he passed the threshold, a blaring alarm went off.

"Intruder in Sector 61B," a voice like Teletraan announced. "Intruder in Sector 61B."

In what he would late classify as a critical error of judgment, Optimus chose to hold his ground rather than flee, going so far as to shift back to root mode.

"What the -- " one of the Vehicon guards exclaimed.

"Optimus Prime in Sector 61B," his cohort shouted into a comm line. "Repeat: Optimus Prime in Sector 61B."

"I have not come to fight," Optimus protested, holding up both servos.

"Autobot lies!" a third guard shrieked.

After having gone so long without, the consummate warrior in him took pleasure (albeit a guilty one) in being the target of blaster fire. Optimus quickly dropped to a crouch and onlined his own defensive mechanisms. Curiously enough, the Vehicons here seemed to run out of ammunition faster than their counterparts on Earth.

It would have been easy to permanently offline the five of them once their blasters were running on fumes, but Optimus' processor supplied him with the camaraderie of their Vosian counterparts. Once again, he thought back to the servos over pedes' worth of troopers he had slaughtered on Earth. And so he set his own blasters to stun before shooting, quickly knocking all five of them out.

And _then_ he was fleeing back into the tunnels, certain that the rumours had been without merit.

He got three breems in before the ceiling once again collapsed, just like it had in Vos. Except this time, the tunnel fell right over him and his own processor switched itself off soon after.

\---

His processor rebooted itself to the sight of a large Decepticon who bore plates of gunmetal grey, furnished with gold accents.

"Optimus Prime," the other mech greeted. "Rampart."

Optimus said nothing, working experimentally on the stasis cuffs that chained both his servos and pedes to what was almost certainly an interrogation chair.

The other mech -- Rampart -- got up and walked a circle about him. After having taken a second glance, Optimus noted traces of blue mixed in with the gold. Visible energon veins, it seemed.

"I would ask why you've come," Rampart started, "If I believed for a klik you'd tell the truth."

Still, Optimus held his peace.

"What's the matter?" the other pressed, seizing upon Optimus' right audial so as to jerk the attached helm up. "Did the Emperor take your glossa after he took your spark?"

And there it was -- palpable only at such close contact -- the undercurrent of displeasure when voicing Megatron's title. Though the warlord had done neither upon the formalisation of their union, Optimus was under no delusions that it would only be a matter of time before the latter, at least, was no longer his own.

He forced his processor to narrow in on that undercurrent before opening his own intake.

"I come in search of allies," he answered.

"For your beloved bondmate?" Rampart snorted. And there it was again, that swell of irritation.

"For all of Cybertron," Optimus corrected.

His audial was released. Rampart took a step back before motioning with one servos for Optimus to continue.

"I had heard rumours of... well, of disillusionment. So I came to see for myself."

"And maybe wrangle up some allies in the process?" Rampart snorted again.

"Yes."

The other mech looked at a spot over Optimus' pauldrons then. After a klik, Optimus realised the other must've opened a private comm line. The faraway look lasted said klik before Rampart turned back to him.

"The CIO's on her way," he said. "Guess we'll find out whether you're telling the truth soon enough."

"Is it standard practice to detain all Autobots?" Optimus asked.

Except Rampart proved every bit the soldier too, looking him straight in the optics and not saying a glyph. If the situation were more dire, Optimus would have switched tactics. As it was, he turned his own attentions over to the stasis cuffs.

There was no way they'd be broken with physical force, but if they were on the same frequency as they had been during the Great War...

The door slid open before he could test his theory, revealing a bot -- or at least the frame of a bot -- he hadn't seen since the initial use of the Omega Lock.

Optimus bit down hard on his own glossa, reminding himself that the femme before him was _not_ Arcee. The paint nanites were all wrong, for one, and the coldness of the other's optics would have in any case given the imposter away.

The Arcee-doppelganger looked him up and down for half a klik before turning to Rampart.

"What's he say?" she asked. Optimus flinched despite himself for even her vocaliser sounded like Arcee.

"He's come looking for fraggers with a deactivation wish to raise arms against the Emperor," was Rampart's deadpan response.

Optimus bit back his own reply.

"I see," the doppelganger said at length. She turned back to Optimus and extended a cable. This, at least, was something Arcee did not possess. When the connection was made, Optimus was vividly reminded of Soundwave accessing his memory logs in a similar fashion.

The intrusion lasted two breems.

Then the femme drew a long breath before retracting her cable.

"Well?" Rampart pressed.

"He's on the run for fear of being sparked," she flatly replied.

Optimus felt his battlemask slide back into place as his face plating heated up. Of course a rudimentary probe would reveal his processor's foremost concern -- selfish and humiliating though it was.

"Huh," Rampart said. "Guess the rumours were true then."

"More than true, I would say," the femme intoned, extending a second cable. Rampart took said cable, plugging it into his own memory port, and Optimus couldn't help but steal a glance, just in time to see the mech's golden optic ridges shoot up.

His spark churned as he wondered which memory the CIO had deigned worth sharing.

"Who are you?" he asked then, desperate to steer the conversation away from his mockery of a bond. He didn't expect the femme to answer hoped she would at least change the subject.

"You don't remember me?" she asked, raising her own optic ridges. "I'm hurt. Didn't we spend vorns on that little blue planet... what was it called again?"

"You are not Arcee," Optimus growled.

"Aren't I?" the femme countered. "Have a look," she pulled back her cable -- causing Rampart to wince in the process -- before changing her paint nanites so that she looked the spitting image of Arcee.

"You are not," Optimus insisted, undeterred.

The femme bared her denta, snarling, but was pulled back by Rampart.

"Easy there," he said, "If your upload was correct, this one'll put us on even footing for the negotiations."

For a moment, it looked like the femme would strike her fellow con. But then she turned on her heel and spat out: "Autobots," before leaving the room.

After the most cursory of glances, Rampart followed her out.

Which meant Optimus could put his hypothesis to the test.

In the end, it turned out there was a change of frequencies for the stasis cuffs. Which meant that the old method of deactivating them no longer worked. Thankfully, the change of frequency was a simple r2 transposition which meant Optimus could compute a revised set of commands by himself.

Unfortunately, he was only given time to undo three out of four cuffs before the same pair of cons returned.

"And what do you know," the femme sneered, "It looks like the consort still remembers his old profession."

"I just forged those bonds," Rampart griped.

"Secure him with the girders this time," the femme commanded.

Optimus kept quiet, figuring he would be able to glean more information about the details of his captivity by observation rather than inquiry. It seemed his captors had the same idea however, for they said nothing more after that initial order, either switching to a private comm line or doing away with conversation altogether.

In any case, the stasis cuffs were replaced with girders before Rampart pulled out a tank of coolant and a ration of energon from his subspace.

"I have a cable for that," Optimus said, when the coolant was brought to his lips.

Rampart turned to the femme. "Does he?" he asked.

"Yes."

Optimus hesitated for a klik when the femme reached over to unspool said cable. Then he rationalised this was better than being fed, didn't cut into his own rations, and maybe if they saw he was willing to be cooperative they'd be willing to cooperate in turn. Thus his cable was dipped first into the coolant and then into the energon.

"Why are you doing this?" Optimus asked when it was over.

He didn't expect, nor receive, an answer.

\---

Optimus' chronometer counted the passing of two orns in said fashion. The girders were significantly less responsive than the stasis cuffs and no amount of coding would loosen them. As such, he was mainly left to ponder what the point of his present captivity was.

Later, he would learn that a significant number of Slaughter City denizens decried Megatron's claiming of an Autobot consort. First, it was ridiculous for the Emperor to need a consort at all and second, for him to take an Autobot was a snub against loyal Decepticons. From this union, many feared that his spark had waned and he was keen to sire himself an heir so that he might slip into deactivation in peace.

This was an absurd notion, for anyone that was remotely familiar with Megatron's frame. Between his own top of the line warbuild frame and his aggressive consumption of the Blood of Unicron, there was little chance any sparklings kindled in the present time could hope to outlive their sire.

In any case, even if he had known the context behind this Decepticon conspiracy, Optimus doubted he would have clarified the situation for him. There was certainly no lost love between himself and Megatron; the sooner the other was ousted (or at least distracted), the better off Optimus would be.

And so Optimus onlined to the fifth orn apart with the reassurance that the kindling code would be terminated in a matter of kliks.

Only for Rampart -- who had been charged with giving the prisoner sustenance -- to shoulder through the entrance with a distinctly pleased thrum to his fields.

"Get up," he said, breaking through the girders as if they were bits of string. "You're wanted in the colosseum."

Optimus didn't need to be an empath to understand the meaning behind the command. His spark fell, even as he got to his pedes. Somehow or another, Megatron had found him. His bondmate was playing him like a techtonic fiddle. His tanks roiled at the thought of being sparked in public. Megatron certainly _would_.

He walked after the other like a prisoner being led to the spark extractor.

The timer at the corner of his HUD bleakly counted down the breems (breems!) until the termination of the current instance of kindling code. He slowed himself down, taking each step with a shuddering lurch.

The effort was for naught, of course. Rampart turned around and gave him a knowing look. One that said: _you either speed up or you'll be sped up_.

Optimus swallowed and reminded himself that he had added five orns to the overall tally. That this was all for the Autobots. That this was his duty. That this was a decision he would choose to make time and again.

It wasn't as reassuring as it should have been, but it did get him to pick up the pace.

He had assumed that they would be journeying upwards to reach the colosseum. Rampart instead led them down.

The distant stamping of hundreds of pedes grew louder the lower they went. This noise, at least, was recognisable.

 _A gladiator pit,_ Optimus thought, awash with incredulous dread. _They've revived a gladiator pit_.

"Optimus!" Megatron's booming voice greeted him. And if the spectators' attentions had not yet been focused on him, they were now.

When Rampart led him to Megatron, the kindling code still had ten breems remaining.

"My Emperor," Rampart greeted, bowing at the waist. "As you can see, your beloved consort has been treated with all due respect."

Optimus didn't need to be in-range to know that Megatron's fields were radiating lust. Not when the warlord's optics had taken on that familiarly dark slant.

"Optimus," Megatron repeated, a little bit quieter. He held out his hand. "Come here."

The agony of the impending interface-- which would certainly both be public and lead to his sparking -- caused Optimus to sway on his pedes. He had to obey. Megatron had given a direct order. And yet --

Right as he was about to take the first step, an enormous ax was lobbed, smashing blade-first into the rockcrete floor of the colosseum.

"Megatron!" an enormous mech clad in purple and gold plating shouted. He threw himself down from the stands, landing with a deafening thud on the ground. Megatron gestured for Optimus to fall back as he turned to face the interloper. Rampart then led him to the far wall. Still within the colosseum, but presumably out of the line of direct fire.

Though Optimus did not recognise the interloper, it was clear Megatron did. He pulled his lips back in a denta-filled smile.

"Pandemic," he drawled. " _You_ still function?"

"Aye," the other mech snapped. "I still function. And my spark beats to destroy yours!" He stepped between forward and pulled out the ax, brandishing it in Megatron's direction. "You have grown soft, former Champion of Kaon! Before your fangs rust altogether, I will claim your spark!"

Megatron needed no further incentive, ejecting his own blade before meeting the other in a clash of steel.

Pandemic was strong. But Megatron was stronger still.

At five breems in, it became clear the warlord was toying with his opponent. Pandemic snarled and lost all composure then, swinging wildly with his ax.

Optimus' spark raced in his chamber. There were four breems remaining. Perhaps... perhaps if Pandemic were to drag the fight out...

Another breem passed. And then another.

And then, when there were only two breems left of the damn code, Megatron completely overwhelmed the other. In seeing that, Optimus knew there was not even a kernel of truth in the rumours that had sown such discontent in the first place. Megatron had no need of an heir. With the enhancements of dark energon, his reaction speeds were even better than before. His processor ran through the confrontation matrices, coming to the unfortunate conclusion that the mech before him was entirely capable of ruling through might alone.

"Who else dares challenge the Champion of Kaon?" Megatron roared over Pandemic's frame. He gestured at the stands with his bladed hand which still dripped of energon. "Will it be you? Or you? Or you?" He laughed, the sound of a conqueror come home, before lifting both arms towards the sky. "Come one, come all!"

The thudding of pedes was a cacophony unto itself.

"Me - ga - tron! Me - ga - tron!" A hundred voices chanted. It was a ghost of the heyday of Kaon but a damning reminder at the same time.

Megatron basked in the adoration of the masses for another breem. And then he stalked to the far wall. Rampart was ignored altogether while Optimus was seized and then pulled forward.

It didn't matter. There was no way Megatron would be able to overload in him in seven kliks.

Primus must've been smiling upon him, Optimus thought, for Megatron dragged him back into the tunnels right as the kindling code expired. His spark soared with the knowledge that he would not be forced to carry nor interface in public and that he had won Iacon another five square chords of land.

Did Megatron know what had happened? He must have been aware of Optimus' field, joined as they were at that moment. But his conjux said nothing, only crowding up against him, wedging Optimus between himself and the wall.

Megatron's fans were already spinning on their highest setting. Optimus' hadn't even started up. But the lust that lanced through his field hit Optimus like a blow and he watched, reduced once more to a spectator, as Megatron moved his own servos to rest against the wall. His back struts were now pressed against Megatron's chassis; Megatron's servos were wrapped tight against his hips.

It was, Optimus realised later, the first time they had interfaced while standing.

Lust and bloodlust had completely coagulated at that point and Optimus gave a startled cry when the tip of his bondmate's spike pushed into him without warning. _His_ valve was still utterly dry, having had no reason between the trio of fears to hold a charge.

Megatron stilled, as if considering whether to complete his thrust. At the last klik, right as Optimus was trying to force his own lubricant protocols online, the warlord pulled his spike free, so that the fully-pressurised cable was instead pressed parallel to Optimus' folds.

The hands on Optimus' hips trailed lower. Optimus dug his fingers into the wall as Megatron forced his legs wider apart.

His vocaliser gave a frustrated groan. His pedes struggled to maintain footing. But Megatron, evidently pleased with their current position, slid his own servos back up to rest around Optimus' hip plates, gently thrusting his hips back and forth.

"There you are," the warlord praised, as a charge slowly began to build in Optimus' frame. "If only I could have you dripping all the time."

Optimus shuddered at that, resting his helm more firmly against the wall. Megatron picked up the pace and the building charged translated to a swelling of his valve, followed by the barest trickle of lubricant.

And then Megatron _yanked_ with both servos, effectively spreading Optimus' legs wider while lifting his pedes from the floor, before using the momentary loss of balance to thrust his spike in to the hilt.

"Yes," the warlord purred, feeling the cycling of Optimus' calipers. At some point, a second set of cooling fans had switched on, practically drowning the tunnels in the whirring of their rotors. Optimus tried not to dwell on how close they were to the stands. How any lingering members of the audience might even be able to hear their conversation.

After chasing his own pleasure with bloodlust-fueled enthusiasm, Megatron overloaded in him within the breem, flooding his valve from the rear with transfluid. Optimus jerked like a cable-doll, still dangling half a breem in the air, and made a miserable sound in the back of his throat.

The other made no effort to clean either of them up, nor did he permit Optimus to close his panel. Instead, Optimus was led out of the tunnels, where they emerged in the still-dilapidated complex that used to be the heart of Slaughter City. Optimus' own radiation monitors blared bright-red readouts. Thankfully, there was no one else around and Megatron did not delay, changing into his alt mode before tilting to the side so Optimus might board him.

"No," the other barked, when Optimus tried to resume his 'normal' position. "I should like to have you seated before me again."

Optimus could _hear_ the leer in the other's tone.

He grit his denta and counted to a klik before allowing his frame to do as told. Thus Megatron lifted them both into the air and, as soon as they broke through the dense afternoon cloud cover, was happy to wedge his glossa back between the folds of Optimus' valve, greedily lapping up every bit of lubricant and transfluid in the process.

No reprieve was given to Optimus then, and he found himself standing on trembling pedes upon their return.

Megatron merely gave him a knowing smirk, wrapping one another around his waist while the other traced the three circles on his inner thigh.

"You remain the most desirable distraction," Megatron mused, leaning in to nip lightly at the left audial. He reached between them to cup at Optimus' covered interface panel, giving that a similarly light squeeze. "And I delight in hearing you beg."

Optimus kept himself from giving voice to his own true sentiments, and instead gave a silent offer of thanks to Primus for his current run of good fortune.


	8. The Consort and the Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 2021!  
> Sorry I didn't manage to squeeze in another chapter for 2020, but hope you guys can enjoy this one.
> 
> Also, I was wondering, would anyone be disappointed if I included some chapters from this AU that don't include the search and retrieval kink? ...It does feel like a cop-out (in the spirit of this fic's kink as a framing device) though so maybe I should upload those scenes (when they are written) to a separate story...

As he sunk beneath the hydraline, Optimus thought -- to the chagrin of his own men -- that there had been an inkling of truth in Megatron's taunt, back when Optimus had nearly permanently deactivated him on Earth.

 _You would have made a fine Decepticon_.

It hadn't been the first time Megatron had brought the subject up; indeed, it was one of his more frequent jibes -- that, and librarian. But at that time, Optimus had admitted -- to himself, at least -- that there was a kernel of truth to the taunt, buried deep within.

He hadn't told his Autobots, though Ratchet must've had his suspicions. Very little could escape his medic's experienced optics.

Though Optimus considered himself above outright lying, he was not one to alter a situation unfairly skewed in his favour. Not after megavorns of civil war. He had his ideals and he stuck to them as closely as possible, but in the heat of the conflict, in the middle of a symphony of blaster fire, when more sparks had been spent in the name of their conflict than either side could calculate, and when... at the end of all that fighting, it had come down to the lives of three aliens, organics all...

Optimus knew he had made the right choice, however heavy his own spark had been. The trouble stemmed from his fellow Autobots. He owed it to them, not only to establish a lasting peace, but to grant them enough space to thrive in, in the hopes that they too, might properly rebuild.

For them, he would do anything.

\---

Following his excursion to Slaughter City, Megatron had tightened the leash, so to speak. It frustrated Optimus to no end and though he was smart enough to keep from voicing said thoughts, it was impossible to keep said emotions out of his fields.

Ordinarily, the Slagmaker left his consort to his own devices during the orn. After the disappointing escape attempt that was the voyage to Polyhex, Optimus knew better than to try to flee under his bondmate's optics. The problem was there now followed a spate of stately visits, held in commemoration of the twelfth lunar cycle since Cybertron's rebirth.

The rational part of him accepted that said celebration was to be a Decepticon affair. It was impossible to keep the frustration from his spark though, at the lack of Iaconian representation in the sea of delegates.

He could take little comfort in Megatron's similarly irritated field. They were seated side-by-side on a pair of twin thrones in the latter's audience hall. Optimus' throne was a latter addition but it was certainly better than standing awkwardly at attention for joors upon joors.

"You would've thought Decepticons above such nonsense," Megatron grumbled in their berthroom after the conclusion of the festivities which ended up spanning a chord. He rolled over and traced his clawtips against Optimus' ever-present battlemask.

Optimus said nothing, refraining from leaning into his conjux's touch.

The warlord's EM field was radiant with lust. This was because after the initial night cycle where Optimus had made clear his intention to keep his battlemask on (and therefore refuse his frame the ability to overload), Megatron had refrained from stroking his charge. It was the one silver lining, Optimus reckoned, that the other was loathe as ever to have anyone else see his bondmate in a wanting state. Thus Optimus was paraded about -- well, mainly led from one place to another -- the picture of the obedient humbled adversary.

Optimus was therefore surprised to find Megatron drawing his servous back. The Slagmaker offlined his optics and appeared to drift into recharge.

Right as Optimus was about to offline his own optics, the other spoke.

"The other continents have been a-clamour for a visit," Megatron rumbled. "Have you any preferences?"

What Optimus _wanted_ was for Megatron to leave him well alone so he could make another escape and eke out another couple square chords for the Autobot cause. There was no chance of the Slagmaker granting said request though, and Optimus wondered if his conjux intended to keep him so tightly bound so as to eliminate all chances of him ever completing the remaining sixty-six orns.

"Well?" Megatron prompted, after a breem had passed. He onlined his optics, fixing Optimus with a calculating glance.

 _You should be grateful,_ the other's gaze said, _that I permit you to choose._

Optimus bit back a sharp retort of his own, well-aware that the Autobots -- and Iacon's -- futures rested on the other's whims.

"You know where I want to visit," he said instead.

"Iacon?" Megatron gave a bark of laughter. "You would weep at the sight of your precious city, Optimus."

The anger in Optimus' field was palpable, though it lasted but a klik. Then he reeled it back in. He'd said what needed to be said.

Except Megatron wasn't done.

"Your Autobots are still scratching at our gates. Begging for more land. Give them time," Megatron affected a kinder tone; at-odds with his smirk, "One cannot expect savages to keep pace, after all."

Optimus grit his denta behind the battlemask, knowing full well Megatron was trying to get a rise out of him. In the fleeting bits of conversation he'd had with Ratchet, the other had revealed Iacon was although in bad shape (as was the whole of Cybertron) nonetheless well on the mend. For if the Decepticons were capable of banding together and rebuilding, surely the Autobots were capable of the same -- irrespective of the difference in allotted resources.

"Stanix then," Megatron decided, offlining his optics yet again.

Optimus startled. Stanix was some ways away from Kaon. Judging by the updated cartographical data, it was presently well on the other side of their planet.

"How long will you stay?" he asked.

" _We_ will be staying for a chord." Without even onlining his optics, Megatron reached out, running a servos down Optimus' side before reaching down to give Optimus' interface panel a telling squeeze. Optimus could not help the tremble that ran through his frame at the gesture.

"My audials thirst for your screams," Megatron continued. "I have gone too long without hearing you beg."

Optimus ran through various calculations, still refusing to rise to the bait. In time, Megatron withdrew his servos and settled into what was (Optimus hoped) a true recharge.

Assuming they went by air, it would take at least an orn to reach Stanix. And then another chord glued to his conjux's side. Optimus could have screamed at the unfairness of it all. Megatron's plans were about to cost him thirty orns. Thirty orns which might have been added to the tally.

 _He cannot keep such a close watch in Stanix_ , Optimus insisted to himself, even as a dark voice in his spark said otherwise. _In Stanix,_ he repeated, _There will be a chance to flee._

And with that, he followed his bondmate into an uneasy rest.

\---

The good news was that travel to Stanix was accomplished in the span of kliks as Megatron revealed the successful construction of a landbridge -- the first since the Golden Age -- at Darkmount. As far as said technology went, private pleasures masquerading as diplomatic visits was a poor excuse, but Optimus bit back his own complaints, reasoning it allowed for faster passage between the continents and therefore more time to plot his own escape.

The bad news was that Megatron all but dragged him to their assigned berthroom in Fort Scyx. Said berthroom boasted a balcony which overlooked the Acid Wastes. Despite being situated thirty breems away from the sludge heap, the trace components were still enough to roil Optimus' tanks. Well, it was either the stench of rust or the impending interface.

As expected, Megatron fully intended to make good on his threat-come-promise.

The start of this session had been achingly slow. Electrified clawtips dragged themselves up and down Optimus' frame. Up and down and up and down they ran along his plating. The tender touch was hardly enough to generate a charge, especially as Megatron purposely kept away from his more sensitive components, yet the repeated gestures managed to sufficiently soothe his frame.

And then Megatron was working a single claw into his valve -- which had, of course, been bared in the interim -- and started rubbing that still-electrified digit between Optimus' folds.

His own reaction was an immediate jerk of hips.

The battlemask did little to hide the flush against his faceplates. A flush Optimus knew Megatron could see, judging by how he extracted his servos to nuzzle his own faceplates against Optimus' neck.

"My poor neglected consort," Megatron rumbled behind the whirr of Optimus' fans. "Surely you know that I've only just begun?"

And again, Optimus refused to engage.

Thus Megatron returned his attentions to the valve beneath him, resuming his delicate stroking of the inner nodes. Optimus grit his denta, determined to keep from crying out. He succeeded in that regard, though the rest of his frame had since been locked into an imminent overload.

The deviation from the norm happened all at once. In one moment, Megatron was pressing his clawtip particularly deep. The gesture caused Optimus to thrash, truly bucking his hips -- and his valve -- into the warlord's servos.

And then -- in the next moment -- Megatron had wrapped an arm underneath and therefore _around_ his waist. Optimus heard himself give a surprised yelp as his midsection was lifted off of the berth.

"This -- " he gasped out as Megatron rearranged his quivering strutless frame. "This is excessive."

"No," his conjux corrected, exvent warm against Optimus' folds. He had since maneuvered Optimus' legs to crook against his pauldrons, so that Optimus was practically dangling upside-down.

Megatron craned his neck so that their optics might meet.

Optimus shuddered to see the other between his thighs.

"This is barely enough," Megatron rasped. And then he activated the optical link, forcing Optimus to watch -- through the Slagmaker's own optics -- as the other lowered his intakes against Optimus' glistening wet valve.

Of all the tricks which Megatron employed during their sessions, this was the one Optimus hated the most. Even without the visual feed's connection with his longest time spent away from the other and the fact Megatron had used it to force him _back_ , it was the fact that the optical feed forced his processor to concentrate -- and acknowledge -- the pleasure that was being wrought from his frame. Optimus could no more disengage himself from the situation than he could disengage his valve from Megatron's glossa.

The Slagmaker did not avert or otherwise alter his gaze.

And so Optimus was treated to a joor of his own valve, clenching and contracting, quivering and leaking. Again and again, the Slagmaker's glossa lapped up the trickle of lubricant, only for Optimus' inner walls to secret more of the stuff.

It was disgusting beyond glyphs, and Megatron couldn't get enough of it.

Were it not for the damn inhibitor, Optimus knew he would have overloaded two, maybe even three, times from the other's glossa. The thickness of the organ combined with the persistent stroking left him twitching and moaning and clawing at Megatron's helm.

"Patience," Megatron chided, when a joor and three breems had passed and it seemed he had eaten his fill.

The damn optic link was _still_ in place at that point, which meant Optimus was forced to watch the other lower his frame -- his quaking leaking wanton frame -- back onto the berth. Megatron's optics preceded his servos, trailing electrified pathways down Optimus' more sensitive parts this time.

"Look at yourself," Megatron commanded, as if Optimus weren't already doing so. "Who could see this and not want?" he asked. One servos trailed down, playing one last time with the swollen folds of Optimus' valve -- and thus forcing Optimus(' frame) to give another weak little roll of his hips.

At last, it seemed like Megatron could wait no longer either, at last pulling back his own interface panel. His spike pressurised in a nanoklik with the leaking head pressed flush against Optimus' valve.

A joint moan escaped both their intakes as Megatron worked himself in. The spin of cooling fans was dizzying but the worst aspect of it all -- for Optimus -- was how he was now being forced to watch himself be taken.

"My beloved consort," Megatron rasped, when he was at last sunk in to the hilt. "How perfectly we fit together."

And only then -- when Optimus' was awash with demands for overload and Optimus' processor in little better condition -- did Megatron terminate the connection, thus permitting-come-forcing Optimus to look up at the lust-filled optics of his conjux.

It took less than a klik for Megatron to overload in him. The room was awash with the thrum of their fans and the sticky afterscent of transfluid. Optimus was dimly aware of it dripping down, pooled by manner of thick globs around his aft.

Megatron pulled out and then looked down, obviously admiring his handiwork. Optimus gave a silent benediction that the Slagmaker didn't attempt to reconnect their optic feeds for his inspection. Instead, he ran his claws against Optimus' outermost folds and gave a knowing purr at the whine it elicited.

And then he turned his gaze upwards, looking into Optimus' unfocused optics.

The Slagmaker reached out, tapping the same clawtip against Optimus' ever-present battlemask.

Optimus forced his systems into a hard reboot, bringing his field all the closer at the same time. His processor was well-aware the show of rejection might haunt him later, but at the present, refraining from triggering the kindling code had the highest priority. Well, that and netting as much additional land for Iacon as possible.

Megatron tutted, tapping against the mask a couple more times. When it became clear Optimus would not retract his battlemask, he gave a long-suffering ex-vent before pressing his intakes to Optimus' neck cables. It was a poor substitute, but it would have to do.

Optimus offlined his optics and counted the kliks.

It took five breems for Megatron to disentangle their limbs and another three breems to clean them up. A breem after that and Optimus was left -- at last and for the first time in over a chord -- to his own affairs. Megatron's parting shot was a warning that he would not have other mechs seeing his consort in such a state. And thus Optimus was effectively relieved of any other duties (few and far between though they were) for the orn.

 _Just as well_ , Optimus thought, as he recalibrated his priorities log via HUD in the wake of his bondmate's departure. It wasn't as if he wanted any of the (other) Decepticons to see him in such a state either.

\---

Optimus' initial plan had been to hide out for a chord in the Acid Wastes. Said stretch of no bot's land had been notoriously difficult to navigate even before the war and the old legends said dozens of marauders had made the tunnels into a veritable maze in the time of the primes.

The problem was that, in the aftermath of the war -- and particularly the decommissioning of ninety-nine out of one hundred landbridges -- the acid which gave the locale its name now had no place to flow into. What used to be a tire-deep pile of sludge now sometimes rose to cover his windshields.

Worse still, the acid was eating away at his internal energon storage.

The three joor trek in alt mode should have expended no more than ten percent of his energon. Instead, courtesy of the megavorn-old collection of acid, he had been sapped of over fifty percent of his tank.

And then the beginnings of an alternative plan blossomed in the back of his processor when he called upon his navigational unit.

Stanix -- after the current yawn of Primus -- was as far and away from both Kaon and Iacon as possible. Yet it -- and specifically the Acid Wastes -- now bordered the Sea of Rust.

Optimus did not allow himself the time to think. With thought, came doubt. There was no time for anything but action.

Thus he kicked his engines in high gear and raced through the main cluster of tunnels.

As expected, Hadean hadn't even left the sky by the time he reached the Cliffs of Pyromar.

He shifted back into root mode and then looked down at the lapping waves of hydroline. Up close, he realised they were the same colour as the sunset on Earth.

Optimus grinned and let out an uncharacteristic whoop before throwing himself into the sea.

As expected, he sank beneath the waves like the dense juxtaposition of metal he was.

His energon reserves were at fifteen percent then.

He was surprised to discover the presence of an underwater current in the Sea of Rust. It was a river, an underwater river strong enough to carry his frame over the span of several square vorns. By the time the river deposited him at the bottom of some great bed of rust, Optimus no longer had energy enough to reach the surface.

Despite the knowledge that he might have unwittingly trapped himself, Optimus couldn't help the smile that rose from his spark.

 _Let Megatron try to find me now,_ he thought.

Within the joor, his processor forced him into an energy-saving state of extended stasis.

\---

Optimus' reprieve was a finite one.

He dimly remembered looking up through layers and layers of alternating currents. Then followed a moment of darkness, no more jarring than the usual length of recharge, before he found himself onlining to the sight of his bondmate.

He noticed three things in rapid succession then. First, Megatron's field was sharp enough to kill. The warlord was unspeakably furious, most likely with him. Second, Megatron had swapped his right arm for Liege Maximo's once more. And third -- a task which was only accomplished by means of his own chronometer -- two and a half vorns had since passed.

Optimus' optics widened.

Two and a half _vorns_?

His chronometer helpfully spat back the specifics: two vorns, eleven lunar cycles, two chords, ten orns... and some manner of joors, breems, and kliks.

He opened his intake, but realised he had no idea what to say.

Two vorns. Gone in the blink of an upload.

Megatron stared down at him with furious red optics. It was probably asking too much to hope the other had taken some more willing bot to play bondmate in the meantime, especially by the palpable fury that ran his field ragged.

Movement in the corner of his left optic caught Optimus' attention and he turned in an attempt to face it.

Like lightning, the servos of Liege Maximo shot out, seizing upon his battlemask and wresting his face back to its previous position.

Optimus swallowed, unnerved by the unspoken command in Megatron's eyes.

_Don't you dare look away, Optimus Prime._

They stayed like that for the span of breems which sluiced by like orns. Or perhaps -- a frantically giddy voice in his spark supplied -- like _vorns_.

Primus, Optimus thought, still having trouble wrapping his processor around the idea of so much time having gone by.

He was saved from having to start a conversation by the familiar schwipp that accompanied the opening of a landbridge. He watched as Megatron's optics flickered up -- though the borrowed arm remained -- before the other got to his feet, dragging Optimus behind him as if the last of the Primes were a sparkling's toy.

It was then that Optimus realised they were on a ship, presumably somewhere afloat on the Sea of Rust. The crew was mostly drones, along with half a dozen other Decepticons, none of whom he recognised.

None of them dared look right at him.

Not as a single glyph was uttered in their wake.

Optimus let himself be dragged into the landbridge and wasn't even surprised to find that it led to their berthroom in Darkmount.

Two vorns gone by and he hadn't felt more than a joor of it.

Megatron's grip on his wrist would have crushed a weaker alloy. Against Optimus' plating however, the pressure merely prompted a warning message. _Remove your servos from its present location,_ his HUD helpfully supplied, as if Optimus could.

The landbridge closed behind them with the same schwipp. As expected, none of the other bots on the ship were to follow them back.

Megatron's silence threw him off-balance. Of the two of them -- even before their joke of a union -- Megatron had always been the one to initiate and then extend the conversation. His field too, had only ever swung between smug and jovial.

There was none of that now and the mech that stood before him seemed like a different bot altogether. Optimus barely kept from flinching when the stolen servos was lifted yet again, this time moving to cup against the curve of his battlemask.

And still, Megatron said nothing.

A klik passed, and Optimus was certain he would go mad, staring into those forsaken red optics. He opened his intakes, about to force himself to say something -- anything -- except then Megatron shoved him bodily against the berth.

He landed in a pool of dust. Two vorns' worth of neglect, he would later realise, wedged in the back of his intakes.

Megatron followed with jagged movements but Optimus was too busy trying to clear his own intakes then. Without conscious effort, his battlemask slid back in an attempt to let him cough.

Except then Megatron's own servos was upon his chin the nanoklik the piece of metal had gone. Between the build-up of dust and the furious glossa that was now plunging into his intakes, Optimus heard himself gagging. His conjux would not be denied however, intent on deepening the kiss. He must have tasted the dust that had been transferred from the berth to Optimus' glossa by then, but even that did nothing to stay Megatron's assault.

Optimus tried not to think of the implications as the knee that was pressed between his thighs was soon replaced by the other servos. The one that had once belonged to Liege Maximo. Despite not being any part of Megatron, the borrowed limb was evidently classified as some nebulous other. Which meant that it too was capable of ordering Optimus to bare himself.

The kiss continued and Optimus heard his external vents labouring for a chance to ex-vent. His own servos scrabbled against Megatron's shoulders but found poor purchase on the spikes that still adorned his pauldrons.

A charge was only just beginning to build in his valve when Megatron cycled his spike into position.

Optimus startled -- he was nowhere near prepared enough -- which translated to a tremulous rumble at the base of his throat, but Megatron was undeterred. Making use of his greater mass, the other somehow managed to force himself in to the hilt.

Optimus could not stifle his own cry. Nor could he hide the pained tremble in his EM fields.

By the blessing of Primus, Megatron did not press his advantage. As soon as his spike was fully sheathed, he locked his frame into place. Both their fields relaxed. By a fraction of a klik. In any case, now that Optimus didn't have a slagger's chance in the Pit of getting away, the warlord slowly drew his helm back, finally allowing Optimus to properly ex-vent.

It was strange, Optimus thought. Even though their state visit to Stanix felt like a mere orn ago, in reality, his frame had been waiting at the bottom of the Sea of Rust for the whole time. To him, it felt like he was being speared open anew.

After a couple breems, when it was clear Megatron would neither move nor speak, Optimus concentrated on calming his own vents and fans down, hoping his field would follow suit.

As soon as he had eased his fans off of their highest panic-induced setting, Megatron abruptly rolled so that their positions were reversed. Optimus was still speared across the warlord's spike of course, but Megatron was the one now buried in two vorns' worth of dust.

Yet the berthroom remained silent, save for the spinning of their fans.

Optimus couldn't entirely hide the flinch, a reaction triggered by Liege Maximo's servos against his thighs. In a similar manner, the wave of displeasure that washed through Megatron's field was impossible to miss.

 _He could order me to do any manner of things right now,_ Optimus thought. _Yet he does not._

Megatron was clearly furious with him. Optimus had assumed he would mean for the interface to hurt and humiliate. And yet as soon as he was entirely at the other's mercy, the second pede failed to drop.

The charge that followed in the wake of the electrified servos was nearly a relief. It distracted Optimus from the details of the situation at least, and slowly coaxed additional lubricant from his valve. In time, the servos persuaded his frame to rock against Megatron's spike, convincing him with a mix of light touches on his inner thighs followed by the slightest twisting of his exterior node.

It was the first time he'd taken such an active role, Optimus realised. And he had done so without the use of a single command.

Despite the involuntary concession by way of his battlemask, it soon became clear that Megatron would deny him overload.

 _So be it,_ Optimus thought, rocking his hips with increased fervency. He reasoned: the sooner he brought the other to overload, the sooner he might at least be free of his bondmate's spike.

Megatron overloaded in him with a grunt, lunging forward with both servos to pull Optimus in by his audials for another nauseating kiss. Globs of transfluid traveled up his valve, leaving a familiar tingle in their wake. Optimus shivered, rolling his hips without meaning to, as he waited for the warlord to depressurise and disengage his spike.

Instead of sticking to their previously-established routine however, Megatron pushed himself up into a sitting position as soon as his own cooling fans had clicked off. As his spike was still wedged deep in Optimus then -- Optimus, who gave another unbecoming yelp of alarm -- it meant that Optimus was forced to straddle him even more obscenely as a result.

There wasn't much comfort to be sought in their current position. Megatron was seated with his legs crossed, with Optimus' legs still wrapped indecently about his midsection.

And then the warlord reached between them, tracing the spot where they were joined with his stolen limb. Optimus shivered and shuddered. It was not entirely due to his own unrealised overload.

Only then did Megatron speak.

"Welcome back," he murmured against Optimus' audial. The chill of the words were at odds with the heat radiating from the other's field.

 _This is where you belong,_ said field preened.

Optimus cautiously slid his battlemask back into place in a silent show of disagreement. Megatron said nothing at that, offlining his optics before resting his helm in the crook of Optimus' shoulder.

Optimus huffed, pointedly clenching his valve.

The spike wedged in it gave a dangerous return pulse.

He shifted his hips, trying to ease himself off, only for Megatron's servos to plant themselves on his waist, holding him in place.

"Peace," the warlord breathed, making no effort to move his helm or online his optics. "This is the easiest means of reacclimation."

_Reacclimation._

So that was what this was about. Optimus spark churned, crying out at the unfairness of it all. Two vorns spent away, and he didn't remember a thing! In his memory banks, it was as if they'd never been apart. And yet his frame and their berthroom, and the state of Megatron's psyche all spoke to the contrary.

He huffed another useless ex-vent before attempting to settle himself in a more comfortable position. It was impossible of course, and recharge was slow to come.


	9. The Consort and the School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q: Is this story ever going to deserve a "Mech Preg" tag?  
> A: Yes, but not this chapter either, alas! D:
> 
> Also this should probably be made more explicit somewhere (maybe in a backstory scene or something) but in addition to demanding Optimus play consort, Megatron (and the Decepticons) had the Autobot high command (including Ratchet) swear to acknowledge and uphold the union. So that's why Ratchet's field is so frustrated here.

Optimus bore the burden of his bondmate's constant company for the length of a chord. But when Megatron still refused to give him any quarter after fourteen orns had passed, he feared he would go mad waiting.

They were joined most literally at the waist then. It was late in the orn and the horizon sparkled in the wake of Hadean's descent. At least Megatron had consented to pulling out most orns, though he had outright snarled when Optimus tried to move out of servos' reach. Optimus shifted unhappily in the other's grip, mulling over how to best present his case.

The problem was, the only thing he was truly sorry for was that he had been in stasis for the whole of his absence. And they both knew it.

For the past chord, Optimus had struggled with the fear that this would be his new reality. Kept perpetually at arms-length from the warlord, holed up in their untouched berthroom.

At least Megatron had consented for the cleaning drones to do away with the dust after the first night cycle. Optimus didn't see them of course -- having been dragged by his bondmate into the baths at that time -- but he returned to the sight of the berthroom restored to its former near-sterile glory. And then Megatron elected to take him again, this time on the floor.

 _He wouldn't,_ Optimus insisted. _He cannot._

Except a dark voice that sounded too much like his conjux's own for comfort brought up their most recent slew of interfaces and Optimus was made to confront the rage of emotions that flickered over his bondmate's field. Of the two of them, Megatron generally affected better control over his field, what with his former life as a gladiator and his friendship with a telepath.

 _He would,_ the voice purred. _He would, he would._

Optimus shifted again, trying to organise his thoughts. The movement was enough to rouse Megatron, who idly ran his servos down the length of Optimus' frame, clearly still in the midst of recharge. The warbuild's engine still hummed with post-overload contentment.

Optimus drew an invent before trying to match the vibrations of his own engine to the same frequency, despite feeling none of the same afterglow. Overload had, after all, been consistently denied to him. Megatron didn't seem to have any interest in making him beg at least, having concentrated his efforts on _reacclimation_ , whatever that was. Optimus took comfort in the knowledge that there was no way he would be sparked from this... whatever 'this' now was.

Gradually, the purr of his own engine grew to match Megatron's. As expected, the resonant vibrations took a bit of the edge off of the warlord's jagged field. It was enough for him to loosen his hold on Optimus' frame at least.

Optimus urged his engine to maintain the same frequency before gingerly attempting to extract himself.

His conjux's reaction was instantaneous.

Like clockwork, Megatron's optics shot online. The claws about Optimus' waist tightened and Optimus found himself flipped onto his back with a grunt. His lower half was now pinned beneath his bondmate's frame, beneath his bondmate's gaze, and his valve was still quivering around said bondmate's spike.

Both their engines stuttered to a halt at that point. The jagged lines that were the result of a mix of violent emotions had since regained their hold over Megatron's field with a vengeance. Megatron, who loomed over him yet again, was now propped up on both servos.

Optimus held his bondmate's gaze, hoping his own frustration might penetrate the other's turbulent field.

 _Command me,_ his own gaze dared.

And that was the second most jarring aspect of this whole situation. Since dragging him back to their berthroom, Megatron had not once issued a true command. The neutered slave coding still lurked in the corner of Optimus' processor, having gone two vorns without forcing him to obedience, but the only real holdover from the initial set of commands was his uncovered interface panel.

Megatron narrowed his optics in a similarly silent refusal. There followed a flash of denta -- a warning -- before the other fell down, effectively relaxing his frame so that he could further pin Optimus to the berth.

Optimus swallowed as the still-familiar weight settled over him.

"You cannot stay here forever," he said at last, certain of that truth. Megatron, after all, was surely still Emperor.

His bondmate heaved a warm exvent over his shoulder in response.

"I cannot," Megatron agreed. His vocaliser betrayed a twinge of... remorse? Impossible, Optimus thought, and promptly purged said evaluation from his processor.

"How long then?" Optimus pressed. It wasn't the first time he had asked and he didn't expect to receive an answer.

Megatron surprised him then by licking a wet stripe up his pauldron then. The motion caused Optimus' valve to clench up which elicited an enthusiastic twitch from the spike wedged in it in turn.

"When I've had my fill," the warlord rasped.

It was madness. There was no other way to describe it. And worse still, the other's field made clear that he would never _truly_ have his fill.

\---

The uncertainty was its own form of torture. As the orns slipped away and Megatron remained as intractable as ever, Optimus' processor began to supply him with a slew of doomsday scenarios. His greatest fear was that the warlord was keeping him here, not because he wanted his fill of Optimus' unwilling company, but due to the state of the rest of the planet. The terms of their contract had been exacting: Optimus' loyalty and obedience in exchange for Autobot autonomy in Iacon. Two vorns was certainly time enough for Iacon to be razed a second time.

And so Optimus' recharges were haunted with images of sparkless frames. Of bombed-out nurseries and schools. Of the cannibalisation of living bots. The war had forced all that -- and more -- upon both their factions but those orns were supposed to be over. The Omega Lock was supposed to have brought them _peace_.

Optimus was unaware of it then, having never been in the habit of scrutinising his own reflection, but his paint nanites were in a terrible state. There was a bitter irony in how Megatron's own lustre had returned in their chord and a half spent cooped up in the square twenty-five breems that was their shared berthroom, while Optimus' processor and frame was now on the cusp of collapse.

In fact, he only realised something was wrong when Ratchet was called over for an evaluation.

The other's familiar field jolted him from his stupor.

"Ratchet -- " he stammered out, unable to believe his own optics.

His oldest friend bustled over, not sparing Megatron a glance.

"Optimus," Ratchet greeted, taking his servos and heaving an exasperated ex-vent. "Dare I ask what sort of nightmare your processor has spun for you this time?" And then, because he wouldn't be Ratchet otherwise, he unspooled a cable and plugged himself in.

The familiar hardline intrusion gave Optimus a start and he tore his gaze away to look frantically as his bondmate. Megatron's field radiated displeasure but the warlord seemed content to glower at arm's length at the two of them.

Optimus swallowed and tried to manually disengage the cable.

"Ratchet," he repeated, "There's really no need -- "

"Ah ah ah," the other interrupted, lightly batting Optimus' servos away. "Believe me Optimus, there is every need."

It was as if he were back on Earth... or really, back in Iacon, for how insistently Ratchet ran through the higher-end diagnostics. The medic hemmed and hawed to himself, still paying the Emperor of All Cybertron little heed, and Optimus was further shocked when a request for private communications was sent. Via unencrypted packet to boot!

‹Ratchet, I can't,› Optimus said, ‹Megatron will -- ›

‹The Slagmaker can go slag himself,› Ratchet answered crisply. ‹Optimus, talk to me. You're not like yourself. Your processor is eighty-seven percent error logs and I can't make helm or aft of _why_.›

Optimus hesitated then, darting one last glance to Megatron. His bondmate's derma were pressed tight; his derma no doubt ground. The paradox was thus: if the terms of the treaty still stood, then the ongoing communication would be punished. But if Iacon had been razed, then the treaty was null and void and...

...and his sufferings would have been rendered moot.

‹Optimus,› Ratchet repeated. At last, Optimus was made aware of the state of his old friend's field. The clinical distance was little more than a facade for a storm of frustration and self-hatred that was like looking in a mirror. ‹Optimus, talk to me.›

Optimus offlined his optics and drew a shuddering in-vent. Then he asked the question he had dared not raise with his bondmate.

‹Is Iacon alright? Do the Autobots -- still function?›

‹Yes, of course.›

Outside of the comm, Optimus heard both sets of exhaust pipes give a ragged gasp of relief.

‹Is _that_ what this is all about?› Ratchet demanded. Optimus felt his primary drive repartitioning itself as the majority of the error logs were purged.

The despair and resentment he hadn't even been aware of cleared away at once and he felt his systems -- and his field -- flooded with relief. Ratchet humoured him, sharing recent vidlogs of a restored Iacon, as if Optimus were still in doubt. While the videos worked wonders for Optimus' field, he couldn't ignore the frustration still present in his medic's.

Optimus swallowed, working his intakes. The most important thing, he reassured himself, was that the terms of their agreement still stood. The orns of suffering had had a purpose. _He_ still had a purpose.

Iacon still stood. The Autobots still functioned. And Optimus swore on his spark then and there that, someday, he would see the fruits of his sacrifice with his own optics.

Ratchet went through a couple more diagnostics, still hemming and hawing with his vocaliser, before declaring Optimus' processor on the road to recovery. Besides the internal psychological torment, Ratchet noted -- again, over the public comms -- that Optimus' frame had also been in stasis for too long and needed to be coaxed back into consuming the rich energon that was standard fare on Kaon.

And then the good doctor was unplugging himself and spooling his own cables back.

"Optimus," he said, as Optimus fought to keep from begging the other to stay, knowing full well that even this limited interaction was an unthinkable concession on the part of his bondmate. The old medic quirked his intakes and added: "Iacon remembers."

And Optimus heard: _We remember. I remember._

He bowed his head, awash with humility and relief. "I live to serve," he replied, a reminder to himself of the oath he had sworn upon accepting the mantle of Prime.

Megatron gave a derisive snort then before plucking the datapad from Ratchet's servos.

"See yourself out," the warlord commanded, stepping forward to wedge himself between the two Autobots.

"Yes, my lord Emperor," Ratchet replied, tone thick with sarcasm.

Optimus couldn't watch his friend leave, for how insistently Megatron was now crowded against him, but even the warlord's suffocating field could not dampen his own.

\---

Optimus' chance at freedom came two and a half chords later. It was, he later learned, the upper limit of tolerance even for a frame like Megatron's.

The message from Megatron's own medic came in the early joors of the orn. Megatron had reversed their positions once more so that Optimus was made to rock against his spike, frame chasing after an overload that continued to elude him.

Kliks after his own overload, the warlord's comm buzzed with an incoming connection.

"What is it?" Megatron growled, stilling the rolling of his own hips.

A voice which Optimus faintly recognised as Knockout spoke on the other end of the line. He could only make it 'today', 'pauldron', and 'rust', but evidently Megatron was displeased by the news, field flooding with irritation while a scowl marred his previously content expression.

Megatron said only one glyph however -- "Understood," -- before terminating the connection.

Then he looked up, and Optimus felt his spark sullied further by his bondmate's penetrating gaze. Even though it was impossible, it still felt like the other had access to his HUD and knew said screen was awash with demands for overload.

Strangely enough, Megatron seemed to be sizing him up.

Optimus gave a grunt of surprise as their frames were flipped again before Megatron eased his spike out.

"I will give you a choice," Megatron said. Both his tone and field thrummed with danger.

"A choice," Optimus snorted.

"Yes." His chin was seized. Megatron leaned in for what would have been a kiss, were it not for Optimus' battlemask. "Indulge me now, and I will grant you the rest of the orn to your own devices."

Optimus felt his spark leap to the top of his chassis.

He reigned his field in however, narrowing his optics in distrust.

"What do you want?"

Megatron grinned and this, at least, was a more familiar face. He pulled away and sat up, taking Optimus with him. Optimus watched on as his conjux retrieved a coolant tank from his subspace.

Megatron pressed the tank into Optimus' servos.

"I would like to see you glut yourself on this."

Optimus felt his tanks roil; he was under no delusions about the contents of said tank. It was a step up from having Megatron's spike in his intakes, but not by much. He feared the warlord would conflate the two actions and inch him towards the latter.

Yet at the same time, the promise of freedom -- however temporary -- was a heady one.

Optimus worked his intakes, coaxing his vocaliser to action.

"And if I refuse?" he asked.

Megatron shrugged. "I'm sure there's room in the medbay."

For a moment, Optimus was tempted to call out the bluff. He doubted the other had changed so much as to allow him to be seen in such an obviously charged state. Yet as soon as the idea entered his processor, a leaden doubt chased at its heels. Megatron _had_ changed in the span of two vorns. The arm was just the most obvious difference.

"The arm," Optimus said, hit again with another obvious answer. He pointed at the stolen limb. "You need to remove it."

His bondmate gave another shrug. As if his CMO hadn't told him the already-deactivated organ would, if left to its own devices, eventually rust away his frame starting with his right pauldron.

"It has served its use," he said. "And now," he gestured with the arm in question at the tank, "Your decision?"

It was another choiceless choice.

Optimus extracted the cable he used on the energon ration, intent on dunking it into the tank and thinking as little on the situation as possible. Except he had no sooner uncapped the tank before Megatron's left servos wrapped about his wrist.

"What?" Optimus demanded, optics flashing in irritation.

Megatron smiled in cruel amusement. "I do not mean _that_ sort of gluttony," he explained. Then he let go of Optimus wrist and ran the back of his knuckles against Optimus' still-exposed valve.

Optimus heaved an ex-vent.

Technically this wasn't anything new. Primus only knew how much of Megatron's transfluid his valve had seen. And while the amount in the coolant tank was more than he had ever... consumed... in one setting, it could hardly be classified as traditional ingestion.

"Any orn now," Megatron prompted, pulling both his servos away. The unspoken message was clear: Optimus was to accomplish this on his own.

 _At least there's no chance of being kindled by this,_ Optimus told himself as he reluctantly parted his thighs. It was jarring, to see Megatron's transfluid still dripping from his valve. Except then as soon as he tried to part his own folds, the makeshift forcefield kept his servos at bay.

Megatron's cooling fans whirred to life.

 _The Slagmaker is enjoying this,_ Optimus thought, clenching his servos.

He was tempted, so tempted to just upend the container over the other, orn of freedom be damned. But he could not. Not when said orn whispered the promise of a prolonged escape.

So he grit his denta and ignored how the repositioning of his own frame caused the Slagmaker's fans to turn one notch higher. He had shifted so that his pedes were facing the near wall. Then he awkwardly hooked his ankles over the berthboard so that his interface panel was shifted slightly up.

He made the mistake of looking down at himself -- at his lurid debauched state -- and couldn't bite back a grimace. Centering his processor on Iacon and his Autobots helped, but only a little.

And then he was parting his legs wider and pouring the contents of said coolant tank into his valve.

The stockpiled transfluid was hardly cold, but it was still a great many degrees cooler than the usual fare. Optimus heard himself hissing as more and more of the stuff made its way in.

It hadn't felt like much nestled between his servos. But as it was dripping into him... it was like trying to squeeze the Sea of Rust into a subspace. Though Megatron did not otherwise engage, the lust that lanced through his field was its own distraction.

Optimus hated him. Forget two vorns, he bitterly thought then, he would have gladly taken two megavorns without!

"Look at you," Megatron purred, bringing him back to the present. The present which included a decidedly empty coolant tank and an uncomfortably full valve. And then, when Optimus made to get up: "No."

Optimus glared in impotent rage as his frame was shifted, courtesy of his bondmate, so that his legs now dangled off of the berth. He felt more than saw Megatron follow, the hot puff of air against his valve.

"I will have you calling for Primus this night cycle," Megatron promised, giving one last teasing lick that drew a broken whine from Optimus' own vocaliser. And then the warlord was -- at last -- running his thumb in those three wretched circles and allowing Optimus to cover his own valve.

After ten breems -- of the usual uncomfortably intimate aftercare -- Optimus was left alone in the berthroom. He counted to fifty kliks before pushing himself to his pedes. As expected, his valve was so full that the transfluid didn't even have enough space to slosh about.

The best -- and perhaps worst -- part of it was that none of the indignity showed on his frame. In fact, between the bath oils and the lapping powders, Optimus could have passed as a newly-minted bot.

Once again, Megatron had made certain no one else would be privy to his humiliation.

Optimus ignored the clenching of his own valve, striding out the door soon after. As expected, no one dared meet his gaze -- much less stop his way -- and he found himself vaulting over the garden wall to freedom, to sweet hard-won _freedom_ , within the joor.

\---

Though Optimus hadn't doubted his own chronometer, not really, the reality of how much time had passed had yet to fully establish itself in his processor. Though he knew it wasn't the case, the past two chords spent glued at the waist to his conjux felt more like two vorns.

The city that lay past Kolkular put all possible doubts to rest.

For his own memory logs, little more than three lunar cycles had passed since his initial foray into the city proper. But as he rolled past the gates -- gates which gleamed with newly-installed machinery and blared messages in binaric much like the sector entrances in Slaughter City -- it was made clear to him that the rest of their world had been hard at work with the reconstruction efforts in the midst of his stasis.

Kaon still had the same bustle, the same jostling crowd and haggling vendors, but there were -- first -- so many _more_ mechs ambling about and -- second -- not a single dilapidated much less bombed-out building in sight. The light twinge of smugness he had felt at Ratchet's recording of Iacon disappeared altogether as he realised -- equal parts pleased and chastised -- that, when given the opportunity, the Decepticons were clearly capable of building their own cities back up.

Though it could never take the crown from Iacon (at least in Optimus' optics), it was clear that the Kaon Optimus had been previously acquainted with had been but a shadow of its former glory. Everything, from the bots to the stalls to the streets themselves, simply felt more _alive_ this time around.

It was unnerving, to realise that Megatron must have had a servos in this.

Unnerving... and yet also heartening.

The bombed-out hovels which he had taken refuge in for three orns had been restored to their formerly suburban state. Haphazard rows of colourfully-decorated houses were now clustered at the site of the largest gamma blast in Cybertronian history. The dead end which he had been cornered by his bondmate at was now an intersection of alleyways punctuated by a coolant fountain.

All this, Optimus observed from his vantage point behind the lower parapets of City Hall.

Something like guilt gnawed away at his spark.

Though it had not been his intention to pass two and a half vorns via stasis, he admitted to exulting in the fact. And yet, in that time, his bondmate had evidently been able to raise Kaon to a similar standard as _Iacon_. Though Iacon alone, as seen through Ratchet's optics, still dwarfed the present city, the fact remained that the whole of their world was now under Megatron's authority. Stanix and Polyhex had been well on their way to reconstruction when Optimus had last seen them. He did not doubt that they were now in similarly resplendent states.

It was this fact that gave him pause; that made him clench his denta before scraping his own clawless fingers against the nearby wall.

He could admit to himself at least, that Kaon's present state irritated him. He held nothing against the city's inhabitants of course, but rather, everything against their lord and master.

Yet their lord and master had nonetheless manage to follow through on his promise, restoring all of Cybertron under the rule of his iron fist.

Optimus' spark churned with emotions he dared not name. Seeking to distract it along with his processor, Optimus leapt down from the repurposed citadel, intent on seeing the rebuilt suburbs up-close.

His initial assumption -- that the largest housing unit in the complex belonged to some magistrate or bureaucrat -- was proven wrong within breems. Right as he was approaching its west entrance, a series of bells chimed. Optimus didn't register the sound, but then -- all at once -- dozens and dozens of mechlings flooded from the place, whooping and hollering and chasing one another through the streets.

It was then that he realised, the building before him was not any sort of residence. It was an academy. Or a school, at least.

Though Optimus was unfamiliar with both Kaonian frames and paint schemes, he knew for a fact that said place of learning would have, under no circumstances, been permitted during the Golden Age. The importance of educating the youth had been one of the founding tenets of his own reimagining of their world, one which Megatron had scoffed at. Which meant that someone somewhere in the Decepticon cause must have come up with the idea and been in a position to execute it.

Optimus was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice his pedes had taken him into the halls of the school until he found himself face-to-face with one of the instructors.

Despite being just as tall and twice as wide as the Prime, the mech stammered out a greeting and promptly dropped to his knees, evidently mistaking Optimus' presence for that of an official inspection. After insisting the other rise to his pedes, Optimus took his leave, winding through the half dozen lesson rooms.

" _Teacher_?"

He whirled about, spark wedged somewhere in his intakes, as a mechling no taller than his windshields stood at the door of the opposite classroom.

The frame was larger, the colours were brighter, and yet...

And yet --

Optimus blinked before letting his battlemask slide back so he could smile upon the other.

"E-228," he greeted in turn.

The mechling -- who was still not yet grown -- gave a snort before walking over. "I've got a proper designation now, you know?" he said.

Optimus raised an optic ridge at that.

"Have you now?" he asked.

"Yes," the mechling puffed out its chest. "It's Endgame."

"Endgame."

"Yup, that's me," the mechling grinned, showing off the classic set of Decepticon fangs. He reached forward with one servos and then thought better of it, instead letting his servos fall at his side before rocking on his heels. "So..." the mechling started, "Does the Emperor know you're here?"

"No," Optimus shook his helm. _Nor will he,_ he silently vowed. E-228 -- who was now Endgame -- huffed, crossing his arms.

"So what? You just dropped by to see the school?"

"I didn't know it was a school," Optimus admitted. He looked up and down the hall, marveling at the array of projects that decorated both sides. "I was away," he added.

"Everyone knows that," the mechling rolled his optics. "There were rumours you'd been kidnapped by Quintessons. Everything thought we'd go to war."

It was one of those statements that only sounded absurd after the fact. But the streak of fear that cut through Endgame's field was impossible to miss. A klik later, and Optimus felt a jolt of guilt that weighed his own spark down.

"I'm sorry," he said, turning to meet the other's gaze.

Bright red optics peered up at him, curious rather than crowing.

"Are you?" the mechling asked.

"More than you should ever know," Optimus answered.

\---

Optimus told himself that it was enough to know the mechling who had inadvertently helped him back in the slums (back when there were slums) was doing well. Never again would E-228 consider himself a slave. Never again would he need to forage for scraps of energon amidst piles of rubble.

He drove out of the district and past the outer gates then with his processor awash with the changes in the city. Optimus realised had been free of his conjux's suffocating field for twenty-nine joors then.

Despite the momentary reprieve, his spark was heavier now than it had been when he left.

At that point, Optimus saw the still-familiar outline of his bondmate's alt mode cresting over the horizon in his own rearview mirrors, and he thought back to the first time he had fled. Once more, his processor had difficulty distinguishing between true time and experienced time.

Like he had done for their chase across the Ulrann Wastes, Megatron cut his own engines so that the distance between jet and truck was held.

Optimus' own reserves were at 68% and the terrain beneath his treads was nothing compared to the treacherous sands of the wastes. He drove on, knowing full well there was no escape, and Megatron followed.

Three joors passed before Optimus elected to cut his engines. Hadean had since dipped below the horizon, drowning the series of plateaus that stood between Kaon and the Wastes in a murky purplish-blue. As he shifted back into his root mode, he heard Megatron roar past him overhead.

Optimus looked up in time to see the other turn on an shanix, looping gracefully through the twilight sky before shifting forms in mid-air.

"Beloved consort," his bondmate purred, closing the distance between them.

"You switched out your arm," Optimus noted with with visible relief. Being carressed with the servos of a former Prime had made interface even more taxing than usual.

"And you revisited the slums," Megatron replied. He reached between them, curling his own right servos against Optimus' battlemask. "Keeping the same company?" he asked.

"Yes."

The warlord gave a low rumble of his engines in lieu of a reply. His intakes laved against Optimus' neck cables and for a moment, he thought Megatron would take him out in the open. Except then the other pulled away within breems, stepping back and shifting forms once more.

"Get on," Megatron ordered. Unlike the previous two times -- which were still too vivid in Optimus' memory banks for comfort -- Optimus was allowed to rest against the flightframe's rear fuselage with his arms wrapped about the base of Megatron's cannon.

His systems registered a klik before Megatron kicked his thrusters into action, sending both of them hurtling through the air.

Under optimal flight conditions and peak engine performance, the distance from the edge of the wastes to the balcony of their berthroom could be crossed in under thirty breems.

Once again, Optimus barely had time to set both pedes on the ground before Megatron herded him into the berthroom proper, pulling him into berth.

In truth, between the purging of the warning messages and the manual resetting of priority labels, Optimus had nearly forgotten about the excess of transfluid spilled between his thighs -- as well as his own unrealised charge.

Megatron was all too happy to bring both facts to the front and centre of his processor, forcing Optimus to bare his valve before he plunged in with the full length of his spike.

The squelching sound of transfluid being displaced rang in Optimus' audials. He worried his face plates would overheat. Megatron felt no similar compunction of course, giving only a pleased grunt before working himself up to his usual frenzied pace.

Ordinarily, Optimus would have been able to feel the proof of the other's overload. Therefore, when Megatron slowed his movements, he assumed the other had overloaded and his own overfull valve simply hadn't felt it.

Except then Megatron met his optics and _grinned_ , in too much control of his frame to be in the throes of the afterglow and Optimus started as the other reached up and...

...plucked the inhibitor from him, without prompting or warning.

His own fans spun themselves in a frenzy then and his processor was forced into reboot when Megatron resumed his previous pace.

Need for overload warred with the fear of kindling and he heard himself begging yet again.

"That's it," Megatron praised, stroking Optimus' hip lines with his claws. "Overload for me, Optimus."

The fear of being sparked won out in the end and Optimus grit his denta as he forcibly rerouted a dozen duplicate processes. He needed to find a way to journey to Iacon. He needed to see with his own optics that his Autobots were doing well. He did not, under any circumstance, want to give additional validity to their joke of a bond.

None of these thoughts left his glossa of course, but Megatron gave a discontented rumble when it was clear he had failed to bring the other to overload.

"You would still deny me?" he asked, pulling out and running his clawtips against Optimus' quivering folds.

Optimus offlined his optics and tried to ignore how his hips _canted_ towards the warlord's touch. Iacon, he reminded himself. Iacon. The Autobots.

"I should have razed it to the ground," Megatron snarled. Only then did Optimus realise he must have given voice to his mantra.

He startled and lashed out on instinct.

"You would not dare -- " he said.

His fist was caught in his bondmate's servos and given a warning squeeze.

"Wouldn't I?" Megatron dared.

The other extracted something from his subspace then. Optimus flinched on instinct, only to discover it was the selfsame vibrator from his first escape attempt. Said toy was gently worked into his valve as he cried and spasmed beneath his bondmate. And then Megatron pulled him up into his lap, rearranging Optimus' frame so that both his legs were wrapped about the warlord's chassis.

Optimus heard his own broken cry then, as the toy was turned on.

"Come, Optimus," Megatron urged anew, licking the right audial. "Overload for me."

Three breems later and a white-out overload was wrenched from Optimus' frame. His processor was sent careening into a hard-reboot, all but crashing from the extended denial, and Optimus was dimly aware of his vocaliser crying hoarsely for the grace of Primus.


End file.
